UC-NRLF 


Ethel.  M:.::;Gois  on 


ALVMNVS  BOOK  FYND 


HOW  TO  READ 
POETRY 


to 


BY 
ETHEL  M.  COLSON 


The  magic  light  that  springs 
From  the  deep  soul  of  things 
When,  called  by  their  true  namr, 
Their  essence  is  set  free; 
The  'work,  illuminate, 
Showing  the  soul's  estate, 
Baring  the  hearts  of  men; 
Poetry! 

ANNIE  LAURETTE  LANEY 


CHICAGO 

A.  C.  McCLURG  &  CO. 

1918 


Copyright 

A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co. 
1918 


Published  November,  1918 


< 


W.  F.  HALL  PRINTING  COMPANY,  CHICAGO 


bear  jWotijer 


469906 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


For  permission  to  quote  poems  reprinted, 
wholly  or  in  part,  in  this  volume,  grateful 
acknowledgments  are  tendered  the  following 
publishers  and  poets:  — 

The  Poetry  Lovers,  New  York,  through  Florence  Wil- 
kinson Evans:  the  poetic  definition  of  "Poetry"  by  Annie 
Laurette  Laney  used  on  title  page. 

The  Youth's  Companion  Company:  "Rainy  Days"  by 
Mabel  Earle. 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons:  "  Invictus "  from  Poems  by 
W.  E.  Henley,  "  The  Flight  of  Youth  "  by  Richard  Henry 
Stoddard,  and  "  Today  I  Went  Among  the  Mountain 
Folk  "  from  The  Cycle's  Rim  by  Olive  Tilf ord  Dargan. 

Ralph  Fletcher  Seymour:  "Song  of  an  April  Fool" 
from  Songs  of  the  Skokie  and  Other  Poems  by  Anne  Hig- 
ginson  Spicer  and  "  The  Shop  "  from  Profiles  from  China 
by  Eunice  Tietjens. 

George  H.  Doran  Company:  "Trees"  from  Trees  and 
Other  Poems  by  Joyce  Kilmer. 

The  John  C.  Winston  Company:  "A  Cyprian  Woman," 
also  known  as  "  Under  Dusky  Laurel  Leaf "  from  The 
Factories  (with  Other  Lyrics  by  Margaret  Widdemer. 

The  Independent  Company  for  "  The  Cornucopia  of 
Red  and  Green  Comfits  "  by  Amy  Lowell. 

Alfred  A.  Knopf:  "Women  Before  a  Shop"  from  Ezra 
Pound's  Lustra. 

Alfred  A.  Knopf  and  Alfred  Kreymborg:  "Ing"  by 
Walter  Conrad  Arensberg,  included  in  Others,  1917. 


Acknowledgments 


<n 


Houghton  Mifflin  Company:  "  Oread  "  and  "  Sea  Gods  " 
from  Sea  Garden  by  "  H.  D.,"  "  Rain  Poem  "  and  "  Over 
the  Roof -Tops  "  from  Irradiations  by  John  Gould  Fletcher, 
"Paradox"  from  The  Door  of  Dreams  by  Jessie  B.  Rit- 
tenhouse,  and  Longfellow's  "  Morituri  Salutamus." 

The  Macmillan  Company:  "  Elsa  Wertman "  and 
"  Hamilton  Greene "  from  The  Spoon  River  Anthology 
by  Edgar  Lee  Masters,  "  I  Love  My  Life "  from  You 
and  I  by  Harriet  Monroe,  "  Flammonde  "  from  The  Man 
Against  the  Sky  by  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  and 
"  Spring  Night "  from  Rivers  to  the  Sea  by  Sara  Teasdale. 

Henry  Holt  and  Company:  "Birches"  from  Mountain 
Interval,  and  "October"  from  A  Boy's  Will  by  Robert 
Frost,  "  Days,"  and  "  The  Four  Brothers  "  from  Chicago 
Poems,  and  "The  Corn  Huskers  "  by  Carl  Sandburg. 

John  £ane  Company:  "The  Soldier"  from  Rupert 
Brooke's  Poems,  and  "What  of  the  Darkness?"  from  the 
English  Poems  of  Richard  Le  Gallienne. 

D.  Appleton  and  Company:  "  Thanatopsis "  from  the 
Collected  Poems  of  William  Cullen  Bryant. 

Duffield   &   Company:    "A   Club   Man's   Requiem"   by 
^^Martha  Gilbert  Dickinson  Bianchi. 

Zona  Gale  for  "Mother." 

Mitchell  Kennerley:  "It  Rained  All  Day"  from  The 
Quiet  Singer  and  Other  Poems  by  Charles  Hanson  Towne. 

Frederick  A.  Stokes  Company:  "The  Barrel  Organ" 
from  the  Collected  Poems  of  Alfred  Noyes. 

The  Century  Co.  for  "The  Night  Court"  by  Ruth  Com- 
fort Mitchell. 

John  Vance  Cheney:    "The  Happiest  Heart." 


FOREWORD 


It  may  be  plainly  stated,  in  beginning,  that 
this  little  book  is  in  no  sense  a  didactic  or  tech- 
nical treatise,  that  it  sheers  humbly  far  away 
from  the  academic  or  educational  religion. 
Textbooks,  conveying  formal  poetic  informa- 
tion, offering  best  and  most  incontrovertible 
of  studious  reasons  for  the  why  and  how  of 
poetry  reading,  are  thicker  than  flowers  in 
May  or  sad  hearts  in  war  time,  but  here  is 
no  hint  of  addition  to  their  number. 

The  best  argument  that  can  be  advanced 
in  favor  of  marriage  is  that  marriage  has 
been  found  happy.  The  best  of  all  reasons 
for  reading  poetry  is  because  one  loves  it. 
And  the  best  way  to  read  poetry  is  with  the 
love  that,  for  love's  sake,  finds  its  own  path- 
way, works  its  own  miracles  of  sympathy  and 
understanding. 

The  simple  intent,  therefore,  of  "  How  to 
Read  Poetry"  is  to  assist  the  lay  poetry 
lover — far  more  numerous  and  universal 


Foreword 


than  might  be  imagined  —  to  comprehend 
and,  if  necessary,  defend  his  affection;  to 
remove  the  curse  too  widely  laid  by  scholastic 
injunctions  and  "  required  reading;"  to  per- 
suade the  non-poetic  reader  who,  for  what- 
ever reason,  believes  that  he  does  not  like 
poetry  that  at  heart  he  really  does. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  Why  Read  Poetry? 3 

II  What  Do  We  Seek  in  Poetry?     .     .     .  18 

III  The  "Old  "Poetry,  So-Called     ...  37 

IV  The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Called     .     .     .  61 
V  Formal  Poetry:    the  Sonnet,  the  Ode, 

the  Elegy,  and  Blank  Verse     .     .     .113 
VI     Narrative,  Dramatic  and  Descriptive 

Poetry 149 

VII     The  Case  for  the  Defense 176 

INTERPOLATED  POEMS 


I  Remember,  I  Remember 

Thomas  Hood  ...  I 

Invictus William  Ernest  Henley  17 

The  Toys  ....  Coventry  Patmore  .  35 
The  Cornucopia  of  Red  and  Green  Comfits 

Amy  Lowell  •  •  •  53 

The  Soldier  .  .  .  Rupert  Brooke  .  .  .ill 
Spring  Night  .  .  .  Sara  Teasdale  .  .  .147 
In  Flanders'  Fields  .  John  McCrae  .  .  .175 
The  Happiest  Heart  .  John  Vance  Cheney  .  180 


HOW  TO  READ 
POETRY 


I  REMEMBER,  I  REMEMBER 

I  remember,  I  remember 

The  house  where  I  was  born, 
The  little  window  where  the  sun 

Came  peeping  in  at  morn; 
It  never  came  a  wink  too  soon, 

Nor  brought  too  long  a  day; 
But  now  I  often  wish  the  night 

Had  borne  my  breath  away. 

I  remember,  I  remember, 

The  roses  red  and  white, 
The  violets  and  the  lily-cups, 

Those  flowers  made  of  light! 
The  lilacs  where  the  robins  built, 

And  where  my  brother  set 
The  laburnum  on  his  birthday, — 

The  tree  is  living  yet ! 


How  to  Read  Poetry 


I  remember,  I  remember, 

Where  I  was  used  to  swing, 
And  thought  the  air  must  rush  as  fresh 

To  swallows  on  the  wing; 
My  spirit  flew  in  feathers  then 

That  is  so  heavy  now, 
The  summer  pool  could  hardly  cool 

The  fever  on  my  brow. 

I  remember,  I  remember, 

The  fir  trees  dark  and  high, 
I  used  to  think  their  slender  spires 

Were  close  against  the  sky: 
It  was  a  childish  ignorance, 

But  now  'tis  little  joy 
To  know  I'm  farther  off  from  Heaven 

Than  when  I  was  a  boy. 

—  Thomas  Hood. 


CHAPTER  I 

WHY  READ   POETRY? 

WHY  read  poetry?  Because  you  love  it. 
Because  every  human  being,  at  some 
time,  in  some  form,  under  some  conditions, 
feels  and  rejoices  in  the  poetic  impulse. 

Why?  Ask  some  mighty  oracle,  some 
omniscient  authority.  We  are  dealing  with 
effects,  not  causes,  with  undying  and  world- 
wide facts. 

Proof?  Of  the  simplest.  The  lyric  love, 
the  lyric  voice,  was  born  with  humanity.  It 
has  persisted  and  proclaimed  in  all  ages. 
Never  a  tribe,  a  race,  a  nation  but  has  had  its 
own  special,  individual  poets  and  songs. 

To  pass  to  concrete  examples,  the  child 
who  cared  nothing  for  Mother  Goose  rhymes 
would  —  should  —  be  accorded  immediate 
medical  attention;  the  little  girl  who  crooned 
not  to  her  dolls,  the  little  boy  who  never  gave 
vent  to  more  or  less  melodious  notes  and 
cries  and  calls  would  be  unthinkable.  The 


How  to  Read  Poetry 


college  youth,  the  man  of  affairs,  punctuates 
his  enthusiasms  by  rhythmic,  frequently  rhym- 
ing "  yells  "  and  "  slogans,"  the  old  folk  com- 
fort lonely  or  stimulate  dreamy  age  by  re- 
calling half-forgotten  songs  and  ballads  and 
chanteys.  For  yourself,  good  sir  or  madam  — 

Which  do  you  remember  best  and  most 
easily,  the  prose  proverb  or  the  poetic  ad- 
monition, the  uncadenced  "  ad."  or  the  ca- 
denced  appeal  of  the  " Spotless  Town"  jin- 
gles and  kindred?  For  specific  illustration: 

American  cities,  some  years  ago,  were 
flooded  by  advertisements  of  a  rubberized  ar- 
ticle whose  virtues  were  acclaimed  somewhat 
after  this  manner: 

Washable,  dryable, 
Durable,  pliable ; 
Pardon  the  English,  but 
Isn't  it  tryable? 

Few  now,  perhaps,  could  give,  offhand,  the 
name  or  nature  of  the  advertised  commodity. 
All  memory  of  the  article  advertised,  all  faint- 
est recollection  of  its  maker  and  character 
may  have  been  swept  from  the  casual  rnind 


Why  Read  Poetry? 


by  the  obliterating  waves  of  busy  living,  but 
—  the  jingle  lingers. 

And  proves  a  point  that  in  many  ways,  nat- 
ural and  scientific,  may  be  firmly  pressed 
home. 

Hickory,  dickory  dock, 

The  mouse  ran  up  the  clock, 

The  clock  struck  one,  the  mouse  ran  .down, 

Hickory,  dickory  dock! 

How  many  millions  of  delighted  young- 
sters have  been  saddled  for  life  with  the  bur- 
den of  this  simple  ditty  who,  two  seconds 
after  hearing  the  unadorned  statement  that 
"The  mouse  ran  up  the  clock  and  down 
again,"  would  have  forgotten  all  about  it? 
How  many  millions  have  preserved  through 
life  conscious  or  subconscious  recollection  of 
the  not  entirely  dissimilar  legend  concerning 
the  unknown  "King  of  France "  who,  "with 
all  his  thousand  men,"  performed  not  entirely 
dissimilar  evolutions  in  regard  to  the  "hill" 
and  the  "  swords  "  so  fruitlessly  ascended  and 
drawn? 

What  makes  the  jingles  so  long,  so  irresist- 


How  to  Read  Poetry 


ibly,  remembered?  The  rhythm,  good 
friends,  the  rhythm! 

Pursue  the  thought  a  little  further. 
Doesn't  expression  count  for  almost  as  much 
as  material,  manner  weigh  almost  as  heavily 
as  matter,  with  most  of  us?  Be  outspoken, 
be  honest !  Doesn't  it  sometimes  mean  more  ? 
At  all  events,  and  duly  observing  all  conserva- 
tive proprieties,  the  way  in  which  a  given 
thing  is  said  surely  matters  much,  at  least  in 
the  way  of  resultant  impression. 

Lovelace,  "  going  to  the  wars  "  and  inform- 
ing his  fair  lady  that  "  Because  I  am  honor- 
able, dear,  I  am  able  to  love  you  so  much," 
would  have  affected  an  utterance  to  which, 
in  all  probability,  even  the  cherished  Lucasta 
would  have  paid  little  attention. 

I  could  not  love  thee,  Dear,  so  much 
Loved  I  not  Honor  more, 

made  the  sentiment  unforgettable  and  Love- 
lace famous.  The  beauty  of  the  thought  is 
enriched  by  beauty  of  setting,  the  charm  of 
verbal  music  fixes  the  idea  that,  less  impres- 
sively presented,  soon  would  be  swept  away. 


Why  Read  Poetry? 


Why,  to  impale  this  thought  irretrievably, 
do  we  remember  "  Mandalay  "  so  easily,  long 
and  lovingly?  Because  of  the  swelling  swing 
and  sway  that  frame,  to  indulge  in  excusable 
mixing  of  metaphors,  the  vivid  picture. 

"  Poetry,"  it  has  been  well  said,  "is  emo- 
tion recollected  in  tranquillity."  But  poetry 
also  is  emotion  recollected  —  and  reflected  — 
in  and  by  the  lilt  and  swell  of  song. 

Here,  then,  are  two  basic  and  admirable 
reasons  for  reading  poetry.  Poetry,  nay, 
even  "  verse  and  worse  "  as  Lamb  had  it,  may 
make  eternal  beauty  that  might  otherwise  be 
evanescent,  may  help,  cause,  compel  us  to  pre- 
serve "beyond  chance  of  change"  joys  that 
are  in  themselves  of  fleeting  order. 

But  poetry  does  more.  It  quickens  and  in- 
spires the  sense  of  beauty,  surely  never  more 
needed  than  at  present.  We  may  not  all 
write  poetry  (though  almost  everybody  does, 
nowadays,  and  though  certain  happy  poets 
believe  that  children  should  be  taught  poetic 
forms,  as  the  elements  of  music,  with  creative 
possibilities  under  prospective  consideration) , 
but  we  can  all  read  it.  And  in  the  reading  of 


8  How  to  Read  Poetry 

poetry,  like  virtue  uits  own  exceeding  rich 
reward,"  we  can  enjoy  all  manner  of  delight- 
ful thrills  and  impulses  and  vicarious  senti- 
ments and  emotions  even  more  easily  than  at 
the  "  movies."  The  joy  of  reading  poetry,  as 
practical,  legitimate  and  reasonable  as  that 
of  the  stage  or  painting,  consists  largely  in  the 
increased  power  of  making  or  realizing — - 
visualizing — mental  pictures. 

"  My  mind  to  me  a  kingdom  is,"  "  I  wan- 
dered lonely  as  a  cloud,"  "  Over  the  hills  and 
far  away,"  uThe  groves  were  God's  first 
temples,"  what  hosts  of  lovely  images  rise  in 
response  to  these  and  other  beautiful  phrases  ! 
What  vivid,  varied,  glorious  "phantoms  of 
delight"  are  evoked  by  repetition,  recollec- 
tion of  countless  well-loved  stanzas,  poems, 
lines ! 

"  We  can  hear  without  emotion  of  a  child 
slain  in  war  so  long  as  we  merely  understand 
the  fact  without  imagining,"  says  Brian 
Hooker,  himself  a  true  and  delicate  poet,  dis- 
cussing uThe  Practical  Use  of  Poetry;" 
ubut  the  moment  we  ihiagine  such  a  thing, 
we  begin  to  feel Poetry  is 


Why  Read  Poetry? 


not  alone  our  common  repository  of  past 
experience,  but  to  a  degree  far  greater 
than  we  realize  our  source  of  present  action. 
.  .  .  .  The  facts  of  life  change  and 
falsify  and  pass  utterly  away,  but  the  truth 
is  poetry  and  shall  prevail." 

Because  our  feelings,  and  manner  of  feel- 
ing, yes,  even  in  war  time,  are  as  prone  to  be- 
come standardized,  to  get  into  ruts,  as  our 
physical  habits,  anything  that  aids,  induces 
feeling  of  right,  of  keen,  of  uplifting  order 
is  of  truest  value  to  mankind. 

Who,  for  commonplace,  realistic  example, 
has  not  redeemed,  transfigured  a  dripping  day 
through  thought  or  repetition  of  some  poem 
by  magic  of  words  transmuting  the  gloom  into 
beauty?  Dripping  days  recurring  frequently 
in  the  lives  of  most  humans,  such  poems  are 
many  and  varied.  Of  the  popular  order  most 
fitting  in  present  connection,  Riley's  uWhy, 
rain's  my  choice"  and  Loveman's  "It 
isn't  raining  rain  to  me"  spring  to  mind 
most  readily.  Equally  inspiring,  if  less 
famous,  is  Mabel  Earle's  lovable  "Rainy 
Days." 


io  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Dear  Lord,    shall   I    remember   up   in 

Heaven 
How  all  the  world  grows  sweet  when 

leaves  are  wet, 
How  the  warm  summer  rain  is  dashed 

and  driven 

Across  my  beds  of  fern  and  migno- 
nette ? 
Shall  I   remember  there,   when   angels 

wander 
Shining,  across  Thy  fields  and  singing 

still, 
How  the  wind  sways  the  willow  branches 

yonder, 

And  the  rain  murmurs  over  field  and 
hill? 

Shall  I  remember  there,  in  Heaven,  be- 
holding 
The  light  that  rises  not,  nor  sets,  nor 

pales, 
How  all  this  day  the  mists  are  folding, 

folding, 

Saintly   and   white,    along  the   silent 
vales? 


Why  Read  Poetry?  1 1 

When    all    the    Heavenly    courts    are 

hushed  and  holy 
With  Thy  deep  peace,  that  stills  the 

sound  of  praise, 

Will  it  be  like  the  benediction  lowly 
Breathed  in  the  blessedness  of  rainy 
days? 

Isn't  anything  worth  while  that  puts  such 
glory  into  nature  for  those  who,  so  unchal- 
lenged, scarce  might  note  the  gray  wonder, 
the  soft,  dim  loveliness  of  wet  weather? 
Edith  Franklin  Wyatt,  in  "  City  Whistles." 
"City  Vespers,"  "A  City  Swallow,"  and 
"  November  in  the  City,"  performs  a  kindred 
miracle  in  behalf  of  the  busy  townsmen  to 
whom  thronging  streets  and  metropolitan 
bustle  too  often  suggest  only  the  harder  and 
harsher  aspects  of  trade  and  barter,  her  in- 
spiring contemporary  note  but  echoing  those 
of  many  other  city  singers  and  purveyors  of 
poetic  magic.  Hood,  Wordsworth,  Towne, 
Kilmer,  Howells,  it  were  vain  to  dream  of 
enumerating  those  who  have  thus  provided 
sight  for  the  poetically  blind. 


12  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Poems  about  roads,  the  sea,  the  fields,  the 
forest,  the  desert,  the  prairies,  the  mountains 
are  many  and  beloved  as  humanity's  passion 
for  travel,  as  the  wanderlust  that  redeems 
from  cloddish  inertia  countless  comfort- 
clogged  children  of  modernity.  The  mighty 
underlying  impulses  of  love,  death,  sin,  and 
sorrow  are  interpreted,  softened,  hallowed, 
by  unnumbered  and  many-veined  poems  and 
lyrics,  the  persistent  if  sometimes  belittled 
appeal  of  Tennyson  or  Longfellow  or  Whit- 
tier  or  Wordsworth  lies  in  their  power  of 
evoking  sympathetic  feeling,  of  visioning 
vivid  pictures,  of  turning  to  black  and  gold 
and  rainbow  colorings  the  universal  life  fig- 
ments and  pigments  more  commonly  pre- 
sented as  dingy,  dreary,  drab. 

Poetry,  moreover,  not  only  makes  us  feel, 
but  makes  us  feel  in  universal  manner.  "  The 
Colonel's  lady  and  Julia  O'Grady  are  sisters 
under  their  skins  "  is  Kipling's  way  of  express- 
ing a  truth  we  must  all  realize  upon  occasion. 
Needless  to  say  the  Colonel  himself  and 
Julia's  husband  are  of  equally  intrinsic  kin- 
ship. Poetry,  wide  as  the  world,  flexible  as 


Why  Read  Poetry?  13 

the  winds,  fluid  as  water,  not  only  expresses 
but  interprets  for  the  inarticulate  the  great 
general  human  emotions.  It  says  for  us 
things  that  few  of  us  can  say  for  ourselves, 
that,  in  naked  prose,  few  of  us  would  say 
were  the  saying  conventionally  possible.  It 
endows  the  emotionally  dumb  with  vicarious 
eloquence,  it  lends  to  the  unlettered  the  gift 
of  strange  tongues. 

Through  the  medium  of  poetry  the  voice- 
less, whose  most  fervent  moods  and  emotions 
must  remain  personally  unexpressed,  who 
perhaps  never  have  been  blessed  with  fervent 
moods  and  emotions,  may  rejoice  in  the  sim- 
ple sweetness  of  "Annie  Laurie,"  the  kindly 
power  of  all  old  and  new  heroes,  the  splendid 
pride  and  prowess  of  all  those  through  all 
the  ages  celebrated  in  enshrining  song. 

The  childless,  the  bereaved  woman  may 
live  through  experiences  never  directly  her 
own  in  the  lullabies  and  child  poems  quick 
with  the  sacred  mother  impulse;  the  desolate 
may  find  the  lost  grace  of  gladness,  the  sus- 
tenance of  faith  in  lyrics  hymning  the  joyous 
hope  of  others. 


14  How  to  Read  Poetry 

The  lame,  the  halt,  the  blind  may  know  the 
bliss  of  open  space,  wide  skies,  free  motion. 
The  prisoned  may  delight  in  sea  and  land  and 
mountains.  Even  the  soldier  heart  shut  in  the 
inadequate  body  may  share  the  thrills  of  the 
fighter.  The  aged  may  be  youthful,  the  timid 
may  be  brave. 

All  this  through  prose  too?  Yes,  but  in 
lessened,  inferior  measure.  "  Friendship, " 
runs  the  wise  French  proverb,  "  is  love  with- 
out wings."  Just  so,  prose  sentiment  too 
often  is  wingless.  Poetry  is  capable  of  won- 
drous flights,  usually,  even  when  of  uninspired 
variety,  can  fly  a  little,  at  least  can  sug- 
gest the  illusion  of  leaving  prosaic  earth  be- 
hind. 

That's  why  we  all  love  it — for  surely, 
now,  you  willingly  admit  the  prevailing  love 
and  need  of  poetry.  From  the  minstrels  of 
earliest  antiquity  down  to  the  newest  of  "  new 
poetry  "  singers,  the  poet's  public  always  has 
been  more  or  less  assured  him,  though  not  al- 
ways during  his  lifetime.  Successful  maga- 
zine editors  are  quite  cognizant  of  the  gen- 
eral fondness  for  poetry.  Magazine  verses 


Why  Read  Poetry?  15 

are  not  printed  to  solve  the  "filler"  problem 
alone. 

And  that's  why  —  because  we  all  love 
poetry — that  all  of  us  read  poetry  upon 
occasion  and  should  read  it.  That's  why  the 
classic  poets  never  go  out  of  fashion,  why  new 
ones  come  into  fashion  continually.  Pass- 
ing by  all  the  stock  (and  standard)  argu- 
ments for  reading  poetry  because  of  its  good 
effect  upon  prose  writing,  for  its  cultural 
value  or  other  educational,  bread  and  butter 
reasons  we  read  poetry  —  yes,  all  of  us  at  one 
time  or  another!  —  because  we  love  it  —  un- 
less, indeed,  something  is  wrong  with  our  lov- 
ing apparatus. 

We  may  not,  of  course,  all  love  the  same 
kinds  of  poetry;  to  do  so  would  be  as  regret- 
table as  for  all  to  love  the  same  kinds  of  food 
or  friends.  But  if  we  don't  love  some  kind  of 
poetry  it's  because  we're  not  normal  or  be- 
cause we're  not  reading  or  choosing  aright. 


INVICTUS 

Out  of  the  night  that  covers  me, 
Black  as  the  pit  from  pole  to  pole, 

I  thank  whatever  gods  may  be 
For  my  unconquerable  soul. 

In  the  fell  clutch  of  circumstance 
I  have  not  winced  nor  cried  aloud. 

Under  the  bludgeonings  of  chance 
My  head  is  bloody,  but  unbowed. 

Beyond  this  place  of  wrath  and  tears 
Looms  but  the  Horror  of  the  shade, 

And  yet  the  menace  of  the  years 
Finds  and  shall  find  me  unafraid. 

It  matters  not  how  strait  the  gate, 
How  charged  with  punishments  the 

scroll, 

I  am  the  master  of  my  fate: 
I  am  the  captain  of  my  soul. 

—  William  Ernest  Henley. 


E 


CHAPTER  II 

WHAT  DO  WE  SEEK  IN  POETRY? 

NJOYMENT,  of  course.  (Was  it  not 
agreed  in  the  beginning  that  only  the 
"  happy  reasons  "  for  reading  poetry  should 
be  considered?  Let  those  who  will  read 
poetry  for  purposes  of  education  or  culture 
or  conversational  utility.  We  are  concerned 
alone  with  poetry  reading  for  the  sake  of 
fun.) 

Enjoyment,  then,  is  our  object  in  poetry, 
albeit,  as  J.  B.  Kerfoot  sagely  says,  u  One  can 
learn  more  about  poetry  from  watching  its 
P  squirms  than  from  all  the  pronouncements  of 
all  the  pundits."  And  —  let  it  be  said  quickly, 
before  countless  puzzled  or  dissentient  voices 
deafen  with  question  or  denial  —  enjoyment 
in  the  reading  of  poetry  is  possible  to  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  existence.  Not, 
of  course,  as  previously  suggested,  the  same 
kind  of  enjoyment,  nor,  for  that  matter,  the 
same  kind  of  poetry.  Far  from  it.  Enjoy- 

iS 


What  Do  We  Seek  in  Poetry?       19 

ment  as  dissimilar,  as  diverse,  as  infinitely 
varied  as  human  nature  or  as  poetry  itself. 

One  of  the  most  potent  causes  of  the  long 
supposed  unpopularity  of  poetry  lies  in  the 
fact  that  poetry  almost  universally  is  read  and 
studied  with  so  little  discrimination,  such 
careless  selection,  such  slight  attention  to  per- 
sonal tendencies  and  taste.  Another  lies  in 
the  fancy,  frequent  as  absurd,  that  "good" 
poetry,  of  whatever  nature,  must  prove 
equally  pleasing  to  all  tasteful  readers, 
whereas,  human  nature  being  cast  into  an  in- 
finite variety  of  shapes  and  patterns,  the  ex- 
act reverse  is  —  and  should  be  —  true. 

There  are  as  many  good  kinds  of  poetry — 
or  kinds  of  good  poetry  —  as  there  are  of 
good  music  or  good  pictures.  The  lilting 
ballad  may  be  as  fine  in  its  way  as  a  Beethoven 
sonata ;  the  simplest  of  lyrics  in  its  own  field 
may  rank  as  high  as,  in  another,  Dante's 
"  Inferno"  or  "  Paradise  Lost." 

Who  would  condemn  a  beautiful  land- 
scape, an  entertaining  cartoon,  because  it  was 
neither  a  portrait  nor  a  still-life  study? 
Where  would  be  the  sense  of  condemning  art 


2O  How  to  Read  Poetry 

» 

or  the  art  lover  because  a  certain  style  of 
painting  made  no  appeal  to  a  single  observer, 
of  deprecating  all  dramatic  productions  be- 
cause comedy  —  or  tragedy — failed  of  per- 
sonal charm  or  application?  Yet  such  prac- 
tice would  be  quite  as  sensible  as  to  decide  that 
one  did  not  like  or  enjoy  poetry  because  cer- 
tain varieties  lacked  the  power  to  hold  or 
please. 

Frost's  grave  stories,  Lindsay's  spirited 
trumpeMones,  Harriet  Monroe's  polished 
and  tender  thoughtfulness,  Sara  Teasdale's 
poignant  purity  of  mood  and  meter  all,  to 
point  the  moral  by  present  favorites,  are  ex- 
cellent, each  in  its  own  manner,  but  their  vir- 
tue, by  reason  of  their  very  individuality,  is 
by  no  means  identical  or  synchronous.  Dif- 
ferentfeinds  of  poetry,  as  different  poets,  suit 
differing  temperaments,  mentalities,  times  of 
life,  or  the  day. 

Poetry,  then,  should  be  read,  selected,  fitted 
to  the  person  and  mood  as  reasonably  as 
books  or  clothes  or  games  or  articles  of  diet. 
The  eager  prospective  bridegroom  might  not, 
for  the  moment,  find  Bryant's  u  Thanatopsis  " 


What  Do  We  Seek  in  Poetry?      21 

or  Scott's  "  Lady  of  the  Lake  "  absorbing,  but 
Christopher  Morley's  "  Songs  for  a  Little 
House,"  while  of  lesser  abstract  value,  might 
prove  quick  with  fascination.  Because  a 
piquant  anecdote  about  the  last-named  collec- 
tion of  verse  suits  so  aptly  it  shall  be  quoted 
here. 

"  I  don't  suppose  you  care  for  poetry,"  a 
Morley  admirer  is  reported  as  remarking  to 
a  man  who  had  always  believed  in  the  verac- 
ity of  the  suggestion,  "but,"  receiving  the 
expected  negative,  uyou  live  in  a  little  house, 
doubtless  you  are  fond  of  your  wife,  you 
have  chairs,  a  table,  and,  in  all  probability, 
a  cat.  I  believe  you  are  the  proud  father  of  a 
son,  and  it  is  likely  that  you  sometimes  stoke 
the  furnace.  Now  just  let  me  read  you  a  bit 
of  this." 

'That's  not  poetry,"  the  unconscious  con- 
vert exclaimed,  presently,  "  that's  just  read- 
ing"—  which  assertion,  incidentally,  has  been 
made  against  Masters,  Milton,  and  many  an- 
other poet  "old"  and  "new." 

So,  too,  with  the  man  who  in  time  of  peace 
cared  little  for  war  poetry,  but  who  now,  with 


22  How  to  Read  Poetry 

all  the  world  thrilling  to  the  war-call,  reads  all 
the  war  poetry  he  encounters.  So,  again,  with 
the  woman  who,  from  the  widened  viewpoint 
of  happy  or  bereaved  mother,  suddenly  finds 
lullabies  and  poems  of  childhood  irresistible. 
So,  yet  again,  with  the  adolescent  youth  or 
maiden  one  day  considering  love  poems  "  silly 
rot"  the  next  day  devouring  them  avidly,  if 
in  secret.  Who  —  but  why  continue?  Com- 
plete the  argument  by  recalling  the  kind  of 
poems,  verses,  jingles  you  clipped  and  tucked 
away  in  pocketbook  or  bureau  drawer  between 
your  fifteenth  and  twentieth  birthdays,  by  con- 
sidering the  kind  of  poetry  you  clip  and  tuck 
away  (for  everyone  does  it  sometimes)  now- 
adays. 

The  finest  of  skating  songs  would  have  but 
slight  appeal  in  a  northern  blizzard,  but  who, 
in  such  circumstance,  could  resist  a  June 
poem?  Think,  for  a  moment,  and  for  exam- 
ple, upon  Richard  Henry  Stoddard's  "The 
Flight  of  Youth." 

k/  "  n 

There  are  gains  for  all  our  losses, 
There  are  balms  for  all  our  pain, 


What  Do  We  Seek  in  Poetry?      23 

But  when  youth,  the  dream,  departs, 
It  takes  something  from  our  hearts, 
And  it  never  comes  again. 

We  are  stronger,  and  are  better 

Under  manhood's  sterner  reign, 
Still,  we  feel  that  something  fleet 
Followed  youth  with  flying  feet, 
And  will  never  come  again. 

Something  beautiful  has  vanished 

And  we  sigh  for  it  in  vain. 
We  behold  it  everywhere, 
In  the  earth  and  in  the  air, 

But  it  never  comes  again. 

Now,  if  you  are  on  the  hither  side  of  forty 
those  haunting  lines  probably  appear  to  you 
as  only  academically  graceful  and  tender. 
Perhaps,  even,  the  thought  embodied  seems 
rather  like  sentimental  if  not  stupid  nonsense. 
But  if  you  are  on  the  other  side  of  forty,  or 
if,  for  any  reason,  the  flight  of  time  has  been 
pressed  home  to  you,  the  almost  inevitable 
reaction  will  be  that  of  keen  appreciation, 


24  How  to  Read  Poetry 

touched  with  quick  resentment  or  gently  re- 
sponsive sadness.  If  the  uarid  tableland  of 
middle  life"  looms  vaguely  near,  or  if  it  lies 
so  far  behind  as  to  have  lost  all  sting  and 
sadness,  quite  another  kind  of  enjoyment,  that 
of  satisfied  recognition,  will  follow  the  read- 
ing. At  all  events,  it  is  evident  that  spon- 
taneous, superlative  emotional  pleasure  scarce 
could  follow  successive  reading  of  the 
quoted  poem  and  of,  for  instance,  Anne  Hig- 
ginson  Spicer's  uSong  of  an  April  Fool." 

Across  the  fields  I  laugh  and  run. 
I  toss  my  heart  up  to  the  sun 
And  catch  it  back  in  my  two  hands. 
All  girdled  round  with  golden  bands 
It  is,  and  chains  of  sunny  beams 
That  glitter  like  my  childish  dreams. 

And  if  the  day  is  filled  with  mist, 
What  care  have  I  ?    Where-e'er  I  list 
I  run  and  breathe  soft  depths  of  dew, 
And  feel  the  soft  damp  soak  me  through 
Until  my  heart  swells  like  a  seed 
And  bursts  to  very  bloom,  indeed. 


What  Do  We  Seek  In  Poetry?       25 

There  may  be  those  who  keep  a  state 

Of  dignity,  and  walk  sedate, 

Who  do  not  laugh,  and  do  not  care 

To  meet  Young  April  debonair 

And  smiling,  like  some  shepherd  swain 

Who  greets  his  love,  or  sun  or  rain. 

Poor  fools,  I'll  let  them  go  their  way 
Unmindful  of  the  April  day. 
There  must  be  something  that  they  prize 
More  than  these  rainbow  April  skies. 
They  shall  not  daunt  me  as  I  run 
And  toss  my  heart  up  to  the  sun. 

Nor  could  the  mood  sympathetic  to  this 
bit  of  nature-love  incarnate,  to  Browning's 
"Pippa  Passes, "  to  MasefiekTs  sea  poems 
prove  equally  sympathetic  to  many  another 
and  equally  depictive  poem  of  nature.  Take, 
for  example,  Sidney  Lanier's  "  Ballad  of 
Trees  and  the  Master"  and  Joyce  Kilmer's 
"  Trees."  Here  are  two  lovely  poems,  each 
written  in  praise  of  trees,  each  instinct  with 
deep  and  simply  expressed  feeling,  each  in- 
trinsically reverent  in  tone  and  expression, 


26  How  to  Read  Poetry 

yet  what  leagues,  what  eternities  apart  in  the 
essential  verities  that  distinguish,  differentiate 
them!  Lanier  is  most  concerned  with  the 
Master,  Kilmer  with  the  trees,  and  this  di- 
vergence of  creative  mood  must  arouse 
equally  marked  divergence  of  sympathy  and 
comprehension  on  the  part  of  the  reader. 
Lanier  is  the  greater  poet,  doubtless,  but  is 
there  not  something  even  more  widely  appeal- 
ing, because  more  widely  human,  about  the 
simple  Kilmer  lines: 

I  think  that  I  shall  never  see 
A  poem  lovely  as  a  tree. 

A  tree  whose  hungry  mouth  is  prest 
Against  the  earth's  sweet  flowing  breast; 

A  tree  that  looks  at  God  all  day, 
And  lifts  her  leafy  arms  to  pray; 

A  tree  that  may  in  Summer  wear 
A  nest  of  robins  in  her  hair; 

Upon  whose  bosom  snow  has  lain; 
Who  intimately  lives  with  rain. 


What  Do  We  Seek  in  Poetry?      27 

Poems  are  made  by  fools  like  me, 
But  only  God  can  make  a  tree. 

Poems  of  tr£es  and  woods  are  almost  as 
numerous,  as  beloved  as  poems  of  the  road 
and  the  joys  of  travel,  and  for  the  simplest, 
most  understandable  of  reasons.  Woods  and 
trees  and  roads  bulk  large  in  the  life,  at  least 
in  the  imaginative  enjoyment,  of  almost  every 
human  being.  But  poems  of  woods  and  trees 
and  roads  must  be  vastly  varied  if  they  are 
to  range  widest  popular  scope.  So,  too, 
moreover,  with  all  the  unending  poetic  vari- 
ants upon  the  best  loved  human  themes. 

Courage,  to  illustrate,  is  a  virtue  that  all 
men,  all  women,  agree  to  admire,  exalt 
Herein  lies  the  spell  of  certain  much  quoted 
poems.  It  has  been  related  that  upon  canvass 
of  a  large  and  fairly  representative  gathering 
of  men  Henley's  intrepid  "Invictus"  was 
drawn  from  several  hundred  pockets  or  hon- 
ored by  several  hundred  mouths  as  the  favor- 
ite poem  of  each  person  voting.  These  men 
loved  u  Invictus "  because  it  expressed  a 
thought,  a  theory,  an  attitude  they  had  long 


28  How  to  Read  Poetry 

and  deeply  adored  in  less  articulate  man- 
ner. Many  women  might  like  the  idea  with- 
out caring  for  the  form  of  the  Henley  chal- 
lenge. Few  brave,  experienced  women,  per- 
haps, could  resist  the  subtle  charm  of  Mar- 
garet Widdemer's  "A  Cyprian  Woman." 

Under  dusky  laurel  leaf, 

Scarlet  leaf  of  rose, 
I  lie  prone,  who  have  known 

All  a  woman  knows  — 

Love  and  grief  and  motherhood, 
Fame  and  mirth  and  scorn; 

These  are  all  shall  befall 
Any  woman  born. 

Jewel-laden  are  my  hands, 

Tall  my  stone  above; 
Do  not  weep  that  I  sleep 

Who  was  wise  in  love; 

Where  I  walk  a  shadow  gray 

Through  gray  asphodel, 
I  am  glad,  who  have  had 

All  that  Life  could  tell. 


What  Do  We  Seek  in  Poetry?       29 

Because  few  women,  however  brave,  how- 
ever experienced,  have  known  "  all  a  woman 
knows"  the  underlying,  delicately  suggested 
sense  of  adventure,  the  hint  of  poignant  pain 
and  passion  incident  to  this  "  second  epitaph 
for  Bilitis  "  will  leave  many  a  staid  feminine 
reader  glad  or  gasping.  Masculine  readers, 
on  the  other  hand,  may  find  it  dull  or  repel- 
lent, might  unhesitatingly  declare  against 
more  than  surface  virtue  or  beauty  in  the 
poem's  connection.  Other,  deeper  poems  re- 
lating to  death  might  affect  them  far  more 
strongly.  Yet  the  appeal,  the  message  of  Sir 
Edwin  Arnold's  uHe  who  died  at  Azan 
sends,"  Wordsworth's  uOur  life  is  but  a 
sleep  and  a  forgetting,"  and  Alan  Seeger's  "  I 
Have  a  Rendezvous  with  Death"  might  not 
be  at  all  synonymous.  Matthew  Arnold's 
classic  "  Strew  on  her  roses,  roses  "  has  quick- 
ened to  delicious  thrilling  many  whom  the  fol- 
lowing sister-lyric  might  leave  unstirred  and 
cold. 

Here  she  lies  where  all  must  come, 
After  the  days  grow  wearisome, 
She  that  was  Chrysanthemum. 


30  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Tulips  falter  in  the  wind; 
With  blown  leaves  her  eyes  are  blind, 
And  her  singing  mouth  is  dumb. 
Here  she  lies  where  all  must  come. 

Lotus  flower  between  her  breasts 
Rests  as  deeply  as  she  rests; 
Milky  veil  about  her  rolled 
Feels  seeds  quicken  in  its  fold:  — 
Here  she  lies  where  all  must  come. 

Little  feet  that  danced  so  light 
Music  shall  not  stir  tonight, 
Though  the  strongest  love  of  men 
Lilted  on  the  samisen. 
Little  hands  men's  hearts  that  led 
Into  snares  that  she  had  spread 
After  days  grown  wearisome  — 

Little  hands  shall  know  no  more 
Closing  door  or  opening  door, 
Keys  of  sorrow  or  of  grief; 
Lo !  they  hold  a  withered  leaf. 
World,  and  where  is  thy  distress? 
One  chrysanthemum  the  less  ! 


What  Do  We  Seek  in  Poetry?       31 

World,  what  say'st  thou?    She  is  dumb, 
She  that  was  Chrysanthemum. 

So,  again,  in  regard  to  any  or  all  of  the 
countless  tastes,  devotions,  idiosyncrasies,  en- 
thusiasms variously  delighting  the  children  of 
men.  Poetry  there  is  for  the  pleasing  of  all, 
poetry  capable  of  infinite  variety  of  selection. 
Art  lovers,  for  example,  to  the  end  of  time 
will  swear  by  the  Kenyon  Cox  creed  begin- 
ning uWork  thou  for  pleasure,"  or  that 
charming  figuration  of  Edith  M.  Thomas, 
"  Of  old  the  muses  sat  on  high " 

Lovers  and  friends  of  humanity's  "  little 
brethren,"  dogs  and  cats,  will  never  tire  of 
songs  and  sonnets  that  celebrate  the  goodness 
and  graces  of  these  faithful  or  faithless  dwell- 
ers by  the  hearthstone  or  doorstep. 

The  religiously  inclined  —  and  who,  at 
heart,  in  secret,  does  not  incline  toward  some 
kind  or  form  of  religion?  —  will  ever  find  in 
religious  poetry  recurrent  joy  and  strength 
and  solace.  To  the  religious,  as  the  loving, 
the  poems  of  Christina  Rossetti  always  have 
meant  a  very  special  delectation,  as  have  the 


32  How  to  Read  Poetry 

poems  of  Francis  Thompson,  Alice  Meynell, 
and  other  religious  singers.  And  so  the  tale 
goes  on. 

Down  —  or  up  —  or  around  —  the  entire 
list  or  gamut  of  human  experience  the  poetry- 
pleasure  trail  might  be  followed,  but  sufficient 
illustrations  have  been  provided  for  the  satis- 
faction of  any  open-minded,  unprejudiced 
reader.  Any  such  who  have  followed  the 
thought-thread  of  the  outlined  thesis  will  be 
ready  to  admit  universal  enjoyment  of  poetry, 
pleasure  in  poetry  reading — always,  be  it 
again  understood,  if  matter  be  properly  suited 
to  mood,  material  to  situation.  Dickens  for- 
mulated the  facts  in  regard  to  poetry  reading 
when  he  caused  R.  Wilfer  to  excuse  or  ex- 
plain his  tragic  wife  to  their  daughter. 

"  Supposing  ....  that  a  man  wanted 
to  be  always  marching,  he  would  find  your 
mother  an  inestimable  companion.  But  if  he 
had  any  taste  for  walking,  or  should  wish  at 
any  time  to  break  into  a  trot,  he  might  some- 
times find  it  difficult  to  keep  step  with  your 
mother.  Or  take  it  this  way,  Bella, 
supposing  that  a  man  had  to  go 


What  Do  We  Seek  in  Poetry?      33 

through  life,  we  won't  say  with  a  companion, 
but  we'll  say  to  a  tune.  Very  good.  Suppos- 
ing that  the  tune  allotted  to  him  was  the  c  Dead 
March '  in  '  Saul.'  Well.  It  would  be  a  very 
suitable  tune  for  particular  occasions  —  none 
better  —  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  keep  time 
with  in  the  ordinary  run  of  domestic  transac- 
tions. For  instance,  if  he  took  his  supper  after 
a  hard  day,  to  the  *  Dead  March'  in  'Saul,' 
his  food  might  be  likely  to  set  heavy  on  him. 
Or,  if  he  was  at  any  time  inclined  to  relieve 
his  mind  by  singing  a  comic  song  or  dancing  a 
hornpipe,  and  was  obliged  to  do  it  to  the 
'  Dead  March '  in  4  Saul,'  he  might  find  himself 
put  out  in  the  execution  of  his  lively  intentions." 

Exactly.  It  need  not  be  said  again  that 
herein  lies  the  secret  of  reading  poetry  with 
enjoyment:  suit  the  poetry  to  the  needs  and 
uses  of  the  time. 

Is  your  mood  solemn?  Don't  read  trip- 
ping ballads,  sentimental  triolets,  gay  vers  de 
societe,  stirring  war  songs  or  even  Edmund 
Vance  Cookers  bracing  "  Impertinent  Poems." 

Are  you  in  love  ?  Peruse  all  the  love  lyrics 
and  epithalamiums  available,  but  seek  not  to 


34  How  to  Read  Poetry 

stay  your  soul  with  the  biting  sarcasm  of  Mas- 
ters or  the  bludgeon  strokes  of  Sandburg. 
As  well,  when  hungry,  regale  one's  self  with 
whipped  cream  or,  when  throbbing  with  the 
joy  of  life,  curb  your  steps  to  some  stately 
chant  or  dirge. 

Read  poetry,  in  a  word,  as  sensibly,  hon- 
estly, as  you  eat  or  drink  or  dress  or  dream  or 
talk  or  sleep  or  plan  for  the  future.  Then 
there'll  be  no  more  nonsense  about  not  enjoy- 
ing poetry. 

For  whoso  reads  poetry  in  accordance 
with  these  suggestions  no  more  could  avert 
resultant  enjoyment  than  he  could  leap  into 
the  air  and  fly. 


THE  TOYS 

My  little  Son,  who  looked  from  thought- 
ful eyes 

And  moved  and  spoke  in  quiet  grown-up 
wise, 

Having  my  law  the  seventh  time  diso- 
beyed, 

I  struck  him,  and  dismissed 

With  hard  words  and  unkissed, 

—  His  Mother,  who  was  patient,  being 
dead. 

Then,  fearing  lest  his  grief  should  hin- 
der sleep, 

I  visited  his  bed, 

But  found  him  slumbering  deep, 

With  darkened  eyelids,  and  their  lashes 
yet 

From  his  late  sobbing  wet. 

And  I,  with  moan, 

Kissing  away  his  tears,  left  others  of  my 
own; 

For,  on  a  table  drawn  beside  his  head, 

35 


36  How  to  Read  Poetry 

He  had  put,  within  his  reach, 

A  box  of  counters  and  a  red-veined  stone, 

A  piece  of  glass  abraded  by  the  beach, 

And  six  or  seven  shells, 

A  bottle  with  bluebells, 

And  two  French  copper  coins,  ranged 

there  with  careful  art, 
To  comfort  his  sad  heart. 
So  when  that  night  I  prayed 
To  God,  I  wept,  and  said : 
Ah,  when  at  last  we  lie  with  tranced 

breath, 

Not  vexing  Thee  in  death, 
And  thou  rememberest  of  what  toys 
We  made  our  joys, 
How  weakly  understood 
Thy  great  commanded  good, 
Then,  fatherly  not  less 
Than  I  whom  Thou  has  molded  from 

the  clay, 

Thou'lt  leave  Thy  wrath,  and  say, 
"  I  will  be  sorry  for  their  childishness." 
—  Coventry  Eatmore. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  "OLD"  POETRY,   SO-CALLED 

THE  term  "old"  poetry  is  here  used, 
purely  as  a  convenience,  because  of  the 
recent  popular  division  of  poetry  into  the  sup- 
posedly "  old  "  and  "  new  "  varieties.  But  to 
speak  of  "old"  poetry  in  reality  is  as  absurd 
as  it  would  be  to  speak,  in  the  same  sense,  of 
"old"  sky  or  "old"  sea  or  "old"  sunshine 
or  any  other  general  and  universal  character- 
istic or  quality  of  creation.  For  the  poetry 
now  known  as  "old"  is  as  ageless,  deathless, 
perpetual,  and  eternal  as  any  of  the  powers 
of  nature  noted.  It  began  with  the  earli- 
est dawns  and  stirrings  of  humanity;  it 
will  persist,  endure,  as  long  as  the  human 
race. 

Even  Miss  Amy  Lowell,  avowed  and  ac- 
credited apostle  of  the  "new"  school  of 
poetry,  in  "Tendencies  in  Modern  Ameri- 
can Poetry"  admits  that  "Good  poetry,  if 
not  strikingly  great  poetry,  marked  the  epoch 

37 


38  How  to  Read  Poetry 

of  Whittier,  Bryant,  Emerson,  Longfellow, 
and  Holmes." 

"  The  fundamentals  of  poetry,"  as  William 
Stanley  Braithwaite  aptly  says,  "are  in  the 
folk  chants  of  antiquity  and  the  communal 
chant  of  primitive  peoples  in  the  world  today. 
.  .  .  .  Poetry  has  advanced  from  the 
oral  communal  chant  to  a  highly  developed 
organism  in  which  formal  diction  and  forms 
of  fixed  patterns  are  more  or  less  standard- 
ized." l  And  it' has  advanced,  in  the  English 
poetic  history  which,  at  least  until  quite  re- 
cently, includes  American  poetic  history,  by 
a  progression  distinctly  orderly  if  not  always 
regular  or  measured. 

From  the  earliest  known  English  poems 
such  as  "  Sumer  is  icumen  in,"  up  through 
the  ballads,  chants,  and  story-songs  of  the 
wandering  minstrels,  up  through  Chaucer, 
Hogg,  Percy,  the  medieval,  Elizabethan, 
Georgian,  Victorian  and  Edwardian  poets  to 
the  variously  flowering  and  flourishing  poets 
of  the  twentieth  century,  the  stream  of  Eng- 
lish-couched poetry  has  steadily  flowed  and 
risen.  A  similar  course  and  progression 


The  "  Old"  Poetry,  So-Called      39 

has  marked  the  poetry  tide  of  other  lands  and 
races.  And  poetry,  in  all  known  ages  and 
stages  of  the  world's  progress,  has  followed, 
reflected,  sometimes  foretold  and  forestalled 
the  changing  course  of  humanity's  life,  experi- 
ence, and  thought. 

When  the  world  has  been  gay  with  roman- 
ticism, quick  with  chivalry,  overcharged  with 
sentiment,  stirred  by  martial  spirit,  filled  with 
religious  enthusiasm,  disturbed  by  social 
growing  pains,  poetry,  faithful  handmaid  of 
life,  has  ever  been  true  to  the  growing  aims 
and  ideals  of  her  mistress.  "  For  poetry," 
well  says  Louis  Untermeyer,  himself  a  rare 
and  forceful  poet,  "  is  something  more  than 
a  graceful,  literary  escape  from  life"  (al- 
though, it  may  be  interpolated,  many  a  tired 
human  heart  and  soul  has  found  "  surcease 
from  care  "  in  the  poems  of  Longfellow  or 
other  gentle  singers,  fresh  courage  and  stimu- 
lus and  a  bracing  "  way  out "  through  the  help 
of  more  daring  bards,  poetry,  like  religion, 
ministering,  always,  to  deepest  human  need). 
"It  is  a  spirited  encounter  with  it." 

"A  spirited  sharing  in  life's  encounter" 


40  How  to  Read  Poetry 

might,  perhaps,  come  a  shade  nearer  the 
truth. 

This  it  was  that  rendered  the  early  Chris- 
tian centuries  so  rich  in  religious  poetry,  that 
brought  forth  the  tender  love  lyrics  of  the 
court  singers,  the  nature  worshiping  of  the 
Lake  Poets,  the  pure  philosophizing  of 
Bryant  and  Whittier  and  Emerson;  this  it  is 
that  now  calls  to  war  poems  and  chivalric  out- 
pourings, to  surging  acknowledgment  of  di- 
vinity, the  poets  of  the  moment,  that  has 
tuned  so  much  recent  and  contemporary  sing- 
ing to  the  larger  themes  of  the  human  race. 

"  There  are  just  two  great  levelers  in  the 
world  —  poetry  and  death,"  is  the  dictum  of 
William  Stanley  Braithwaite,  who  might 
have  added  love  to  their  number.  The  co- 
universal  nature  of  the  two  —  or  three  —  ac- 
counts for  the  fact  of  poetry's  early  beginning 
and  the  concomitant  fact  that  it  will  endure 
as  long  as  time. 

Poetry,  moreover,  began  —  and  will  per- 
sist—  with  form  if  not  formality.  The  poets 
of  child  races  lacked  the  finished  form  of 
their  descendants,  lineal  and  poetic,  just  as  the 


The  "  Old"  Poetry,  So-Called      41 

child  poet  of  today  frequently  lacks  the  fin- 
ished grace  of  his  later  production.  But  the 
poetic  child,  racial  or  individual,  always  ex- 
presses, consciously  or  otherwise,  a  striving 
toward  form,  especially  in  its  simplest  rhym- 
ing and  rhythmic  developments,  a  striving,  be 
it  said,  frequently  most  powerful  and  moving. 
Pope  by  no  means  represents  the  sole  singer 
who  "  lisped  in  numbers,  for  the  numbers 


came.' 


"  Milton,"  according  to  Arthur  Davison 
Ficke,  uknew  what  all  poets  will  be  wise  to 
recognize  today;  that  certain  effects  in  poetry 
are  wholly  impossible  without  the  use  of  regu- 
lar rhythms  and  rhymes. " 

"The  reason  for  this  fact,"  Mr.  Ficke  ex- 
plains, "is  derived  from  the  very  nature  of 
the  art.  It  is  based  on  the  absolute  necessity 
of  carrying  the  lulled  spirit  of  the  reader  on 
waves  of  recurrent  sound  into  a  state  of  sus- 
pended consciousness  —  a  kind  of  visionary 
trance  in  which  the  mind,  deaf  for  a  moment 
to  the  distractions  of  the  world  around  it,  will 
see  singly  and  solely  the  dream  which  the  poet 
puts  before  it.  The  emotion-heightening, 


42  How  to  Read  Poetry 

hypnotic  power  of  regular  rhythms  and  recur- 
rent rhymes  is  in  many  instances  the  whole 
basis  of  that  peculiar  somnambulistic  effect 
which  is  the  special  magic  of  poetry.  Emo- 
tion is  the  secret  of  it  all;  and  some  emotions 
answer  to  the  call  of  rhyme  and  rhythm  as  to 
almost  nothing  else.  Rhyme  seizes  the  thread 
of  one's  thoughts  as  might  a  current,  and  in- 
tertwines with  it,  and  draws  it  down  into  re- 
mote subterranean  caverns  of  the  spirit,  un- 
visited  by  the  everyday  consciousness.  .  .  . 

"  When  the  mind  is  a  blaze  of  sudden  reve- 
lation, and  the  poet's  theme  glows  into  thor- 
ough transparency  of  white  heat,  he  will  usu- 
ally find  that  what  he  has  to  say  flows  rapidly 
and  perfectly  into  the  smooth  mold  of  regu- 
lar verse-forms." 

This  statement,  of  keen  interest  in  connec- 
tion with  certain  fascinating  poetic  phenomena 
—  Lowell's  "The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,"  it 
will  be  remembered,  was  composed  and  fin- 
ished in  a  day  —  also  has  its  value  as  suc- 
cinctly controverting  the  claim  so  frequently 
and  vociferously  made  of  late  to  the  effect 
that  too  meticulous  devotion  to  form  limits 


The  "  Old"  Poetry,  So-Called      43 

freedom  of  expression,  sometimes  actually 
maims  the  subject  matter  so  treated.  Imper- 
fectly mastered  technique  must  always,  of 
course,  destroy  grace  if  not  power  of  expres- 
sion, but  the  indicated  claim,  indirectly  re- 
sponsible, because  of  sundry  ridiculous  and 
futile  free  verse  monstrosities  produced 
under  its  spell,  for  much  injury  to  its  special 
and  cherished  thesis,  is  not  substantiated  by 
study,  nor  will  it  bear  close  analysis. 

As  well  declare  that  because  a  volume  of 
air  or  water  is  too  mighty  for  a  pint  pitcher 
or  safely  to  sail  a  tiny  boat  no  other  vessel 
or  craft  may  contain  or  use  it,  as  to  say  that 
because  a  poetic  thought  or  mood  over-runs 
the  triolet  form,  is  too  vast  and  sweeping  for 
the  ballad,  the  chante  royale,  it  may  not  gain 
in  effect  by  transmission  through  any  other 
form  of  precisely  measured  expression.  The 
Psalms  of  David,  the  sweeping  roll  of  Isaiah 
would  lose  greatly  by  reduction  to  a  jogging 
meter,  gain  nothing  by  the  most  dignified  and 
reverent  of  rhythmic  settings,  but  they  are  not 
therefore  formless.  Free  verse  enthusiasts 
are  the  first  to  proclaim  the  wide  difference 


44  How  to  Read  Poetry 

between  vers  libre  and  the  majestic  biblical 
blank  verse. 

In  this  connection,  it  will  readily  be  ac- 
cepted that  for  each  and  every  extant  speci- 
men of  real  poetry  remains  but  one  best,  in- 
evitable mold. 

Wordsworth's  "  Ode  on  the  Intimations 
of  Immortality,"  while  in  thought  and  trend 
utterly  unsuited  to  the  purely  lyric  form,  in- 
dubitably is  strengthened  in  force  and  appeal 
by  the  form  with  which  the  mind  of  its  crea- 
tor naturally  endowed  it.  Bryant's  "Thana- 
topsis,"  Meredith's  uLove  in  the  Valley," 
Scott's  "  Lady  of  the  Lake  "  or  "  Marmion," 
Moore's  "Lalla  Rookh,"  Byron's  "  Childe 
Harold,"  Noyes'  "  In  Old  Japan,"  Masefield's 
"  Dauber,"  how  absurd  to  deny  that  these  are 
helped  rather  than  hampered  by  the  forms 
that  so  well  fit  them.  Should  momentary  con- 
sideration leave  slightest  doubt  of  this  idea 
change  the  suggested  poems  into  prose  or 
recall  some  of  the  terrible  distortions  into 
which  scholastic  " practice  work"  has  been 
known  to  change  them.  The  fact  that  it  is 
as  dangerous  to  meddle  with  a  single  line  of 


The  "Old"  Poetry,  So-Called      45 

real  poetry  as  with  the  thought  back  of  it 
proves  much  in  this  regard. 

An  instructive  sidelight  may  be  obtained, 
while  on  this  subject,  by  perusal  of  such  clever 
parodies  as  those  in  which,  for  example,  Car- 
olyn Wells,  is  wont  to  indulge.  Spring  to 
mind,  at  random,  numbers  of  the  representa- 
tive and  diabolically  ingenious  group  setting 
forth  the  "purple  cow"  motif  as  various 
great  poets  might,  conceivably,  have  framed 
it.  The  mocking,  mimicking  lines  cling  to 
mird  and  memory  like  limpets,  but  their  mali- 
ciojs  lingering  is  offset  by  their  irrefutable 
tesimony  as  to  the  practical  infallibility  of 
theoriginal  expression  of  any  real  idea. 

"he  triolet,  as  has  been  suggested,  is  not  as 
a  flle  suitable  to  solemn  and  deep  emotions. 
Ye)  a  Chicago  poet,  not  long  since,  seeking 
podc  outlet  for  welling  sympathy  with  the 
mo|ier  of  a  youthful  war  martyr,  found  her- 
sel  irresistibly  impelled  to  the  triolet  man- 
net  The  result  was  surprisingly  good. 

\i  the  main,  however,  manner  must  be 
suid  to  material  —  which,  after  all,  is  but 
thelmain  contention  of  both  "old"  and 


46  How  to  Read  Poetry 

"new"  poets.  One  does  not  feel  drawn  to 
tripping  steps  while  following  a  friend  to  the 
grave,  nor  incline  to  stately  harmonies  for  the 
interpreting  of  a  sentimental  moment.  Con- 
sider, for  example,  the  Tennysonian  favorite, 
"Break,  Break,  Break,"  that  has  been  loved 
and  repeated  almost  into  decay. 

Here  we  have  not  only  a  succession  oi  pic- 
tures—  the  sea,  the  ships,  the  fishenran's 
boy,  etc. —  but  we  have  also  a  tenderly  vist- 
ful  idea  and  a  music  of  words  almost  as  sveet 
as  the  Swinburnian  phrases  that  might  b  — 
and  frequently  are  —  read  and  enjoyed  for 
purely  melodic  reasons.  And  does  not  the 
"  Break,  Break,  Break,"  with  its  recurent 
rhythm,  harmoniously  suggest  the  splash  of 
waves  on  the  shore? 

Reduce  this  poem  to  free  verse  an<  an 
admirable  argument  for  the  classic  i>rm 
would  be  in  evidence.  Or  subject  to  sirilar 
injustice  the  much  quoted  song  of  Pipa's 
singing  and  note  the  resultant  harm: 

God  reigns.    Everything's  all  righi 
A   sterling   sentiment,    truly.     With  fair 


The  " Old"  Poetry,  So-Called      47 

exactitude     and     adequacy     presenting     the 
beauty-filled  idea  of  Browning.     But 

God's  in  His  Heaven  — 
All's  right  with  the  world! 

Need  more  be  said? 

New  light,  again,  upon  the  vexed  question 
of  "  old  "  and  u  new  "  poetry,  of  form  or  flex- 
ibility, is  shed  by  the  fact  that  great  emotions 
do  not,  as  reasonably  might  be  deduced  from 
the  frequent  assertion  that  form  cramps  ex- 
pression, find  best  general  outlet  in  uncon- 
trolled outpouring.  Of  the  swelling  flood  of 
real  poetry  called  forth  by  the  Great  War, 
comparatively  little  has  conformed  to  free 
verse  standards.  There  have  been  many  good 
free  verse  productions,  just  as  in  all  possible 
human  circumstance  there  will  be  anarchistic 
productions  powerful  enough  to  justify  their 
existence,  a  serious  hearing.  Amy  Lowell's 
'The  Cornucopia  of  Red  and  Green  Com- 
fits," and  Louise  Driscoll's  "The  Metal 
Checks "  are  fine  specimens  of  this  order. 
But  the  majority  of  the  more  renowned  war 
singers  —  Brooke,  Seeger,  Ledwidge,  Gib- 


48  How  to  Read  Poetry 

son,  etc. —  have  employed  simple  rhymes, 
standard  meters  for  the  brave  and  vivid  heart 
songs  that  battle  for  the  right  as  surely  as 
machine  guns,  "tanks,"  or  cannon. 

The  urge  and  surge  of  social  or  socialistic 
sympathies,  as  social  or  socialistic  antago- 
nisms, more  often  than  not  are  "put  over," 
"gotten  across"  by  aid  of  the  time-honored 
and  time-hallowed  rhythms,  rhymes  and 
pulses v  that  have  unending  if  not  cumulative 
power  to  stir  human  hearts,  thrill  human 
nerves  and  souls  and  senses.  Margaret  Wid- 
demer's  "The  Factories,"  and  "The  Face  of 
Teresina,"  Florence  Wilkinson's  "The 
Flower  Makers,"  Ruth  Comfort  Mitchell's 
"The  Night  Court,"  Hood's  "The  Bridge 
of  Sighs,"  and  "  The  Song  of  the  Shirt,"  these 
are  but  a  few  of  the  magnificent  rhyming  ser- 
mons that  recur  instantly,  that,  once  read,  sel- 
dom can  be  quite  forgotten.  Would  Whit- 
tier's  slave  poems,  or  the  "  Battle  Hymn  of 
the  Republic"  be  quite  so  effective  without 
their  lilt,  their  pulsing  swing? 

Whitman,  while  scorning  mere  empty 
rhyme,  was  so  strongly  endowed  with  the 


The  "Old"  Poetry,  So-Called      49 

rhythmic  gift  that  many  of  his  lines  affect  the 
sensitive  like  the  oncoming  roll  of  thunder 
or  the  sound  of  the  sea,  of  a  high  wind  in 
the  forest.  Masefield,  at  times,  has  an  ebb 
and  flow  that  brings  the  ocean  tide  into  the 
narrowest  tenement.  Kipling's  stories  in 
rhyme  certainly  lose  nothing  through  this 
mode  of  expression.  Bret  Harte  could  be 
vigorous  enough  without  sacrificing  either 
rhyme  or  rhythm.  Alfred  Noyes,  like  Swin- 
burne, is  mainly  music,  yet,  were  no  clear 
thought  to  be  found  beneath  their  lovely 
singing,  who  would  consent  to  forego 
"  Proserpine "  or  "The  Barrel-organ"  for 
this  reason? 

Yet  never  one  of  these  poets,  not  even 
Whitman  at  his  most  Whitmanesque  and  icon- 
oclastic, would  be  granted  "  new  poetry  "  hon- 
ors. The  poems  of  all  belong  to  the  field  of 
poetry  which  is  neither  old  nor  new  because, 
by  its  very  nature  and  essence,  it  is  of  all  time. 

The  truth  is  that  humanity  needs  rhyme, 
rhythm,  cadence,  the  recurrent  beauty  of 
matching  lines  as  it  needs  every  other  kind 
-of  beauty.  It  needs  these,  moreover,  as  best 


50  How  to  Read  Poetry 

and  sweetest  means  of  pressing  home  lessons 
that  humanity  must  learn  and  that  are  most 
easily  pointed  by  this  method.  It  needs  them, 
no  less,  to  satisfy  that  hunger  for  artistic  fin- 
ish, perfection  which,  forsworn  or  fostered, 
lies  deep  in  every  heart. 

Blank  verse,  stately  hexameters,  the  chis- 
eled sonnet,  these  phases  of  the  great  uni- 
versal gift  of  poetry  we  may  reserve  for  our 
greater  moments,  set  aside  for  special  occa- 
sions, but  the  less  majestic  features  that  the 
newer  movement  would,  deny  us  we  cannot 
lose  without  starving.  To  sing  is  the  first 
human  impulse  in  moments  of  joy,  grief,  be- 
reavement, triumph,  or  disaster;  to  lift  up  the 
voice  in  rhythmic  flow  is  the  impulse  next  to 
come. 

Impressionism,  cubism,  futurism  (each,  no 
doubt,  with  its  special  message  and  lesson) 
may  pass,  but  the  fundamental  love  of  form 
and  color  remains  untroubled.  Music  with- 
out harmonic  verity,  tone,  or  even  "key  f eel- 
ing  "  may  come  and  go,  but  the  children  of 
men  will  never  lose  love  or  longing  for  music 
that  conforms  to  sundry  basic  and  unchang- 


The  "Old"  Poetry,  So-Called       51 

ing  rules  and  regulations.  So,  perhaps, 
most  markedly  of  all,  in  the  realm  of  poetic 
art. 

"  Poetry  that  is  real,  that  is  fit  to  survive 
through  the  centuries,  needs  no  defence,"  well 
says  John  Curtis  Underwood.  And  poetry 
that,  through  tender  or  vigorous  reality,  has 
proved  its  fitness  by  long  and  strong  survival 
stands  in  no  fear,  needs  no  defenders  though 
all  the  hosts  of  hypothetically  "new"  poets 
and  poetasters  are  arrayed  against  it,  declare 
its  era  ended,  its  glory  gone. 

The  spell  and  magic  of  rhyme,  whether  in 
the  interpenetrative  refrain  of  the  folk  song 
or  ballad,  the  tintinnabulating  reiteration  and 
alliteration  of  Poe,  the  haunting,  quivering, 
pulse-quickening  measures  of  Noyes  or  the 
plangent,  recurrent  burden  as  Vachel  Lind- 
say in  his  "  poem  games  "  and  folk-built  poems 
has  relearned  and  reemployed  it,  was  ever, 
is  ever,  and  ever  will  be  strong  to  move  and 
call  us. 

All  the  wild,  strange  nations  of  the  world, 
from  rim  to  rim,  have  had  their  rhyming, 
rhythmic  songs  and  spells  and  sagas,  their 


52  How  to  Read  Poetry 

runes  and  muntras  and  national  songs  of  love, 
occupation,  battle. 

To  the  sway  and  surge  of  rhythmic  war 
songs  and  lullabies  nation  after  nation  has 
marched  and  rocked  to  victory  and  happi- 
ness, as  nation  after  nation  will  march  and 
rock  in  eras  too  far  ahead  for  present  vision- 
ing. 

Even  the  "music  of  the  spheres,"  far  from 
approaching  or  approving  free  verse  disorder, 
is  set  to  swinging,  splendid  rhythm  and 
rhyme. 


THE  CORNUCOPIA  OF  RED  AND 
GREEN  COMFITS1 

Currants  and  Honey ! 

Currants  and  Honey! 

Bar-le-Duc  in  times  of  peace. 

Linden-tassel  honey, 

Cherry-blossom,  poppy-sweet  honey, 

And  round  red  currants  like  grape  clus- 
ters, 

Red  and  yellow  globes,  lustered  like 
stretched  umbrella  silk, 

Money  chinking  in  town  pockets, 

Louis  d'or  in  exchange  for  dockets  of 
lading: 

So  many  jars, 

So  many  bushes  shorn  of  their  stars, 

So  many  honey-combs  lifted  from  the 
hive-bars. 

1  Miss  Lowell's  poem  was  inspired  by  the  following 
press  report: 

"In  the  town  of  Bar-le-Duc  in  the  Province  of  the  Meuse 
in  France  the  Prefect  has  issued  instructions  to  the  Mayor,  the 
schoolmasters  and  fhe  schoolmistresses  to  prevent  the  children 
under  their  care  from  eating  candies  which  may  be  dropped 
from  German  aeroplanes,  as  candies  which  were  similarly  scat- 
tered in  other  parts  of  the  war  zone  have  been  found  to  contain 
poison  and  disease  germs." 

53 


How  to  Read  Poetry 


Straw-pale  honey  and  amber  berries, 
Red-stained    honey    and    currant    cher- 

ries, 
Sweetness  flowing  out  of  Bar-le-Duc  by 

every  train, 
It  rains  prosperity  in  Bar-le-Duc  in  times 

of  peace. 
Holy  Jesus  !  when  will  there  be  mercy, 

when  a  ceasing 
Of  War! 
The    currant    bushes    are    lopped    and 

burned, 

The  bees  have  flown  and  never  returned, 
The  children  of  Bar-le-Duc  eat  no  more 

honey. 
And  all  the  money  in  the  town  will  not 

buy 

Enough  lumps  of  sugar  for  a  family. 
Father  has  two  between  sun  and  sun, 
So  has  mother,  and  little  Jeanne,  one, 
But    Gaston    and    Marie  —  they    have 

none. 
Two  little  children  kneeling  between  the 

grape-vines, 
Praying  to  the  starry  Virgin, 


Red  and  Green  Comfits 


They  have  seen  her  in  church,  shining 

out  of  a  high  window 
In  a  currant-red  gown  and  a  crown  as 

smooth  as  honey. 
They  clasp  their  hands  and  pray, 
And   the  sun   shines  brightly  on  them 

through  the  stripped  Autumn  vines. 

Days  and  days  pass  slowly  by, 

Still  they  measure  sugar  in  the  grocery, 

Lump  and  lump,  and  always  none 

For  Gaston  and  Marie, 

And  for  little  Jeanne,  one. 

But  listen,  Children.     Over  there, 

In  blue,   peaked  Germany,   the   fairies 

are. 

Witches  who  live  in  pine-tree  glades, 
Gnomes  deep   in  mines,  with  pickaxes 

and  spades. 
Fairies   who   dance  upon   round   grass 

rings, 
And    a    Rhine-river   where    a    Lorelei 

sings. 
The  kind  German  fairies  know  of  your 

prayer, 


56  H o<w  to  Read  Poetry 

They  caught  it  as  it  went  through  the 

air. 

Hush,  Children !     Christmas  is  coming. 
Christmas,  and  fairies,  and  cornucopias 

of  sugar-plums ! 

Hollow  thunder  over  the  Hartz  moun- 
tains. 

Hollow  thunder  over  the  Black  Forest. 

Hollow  thunder  over  the  Rhine. 

Hollow  thunder  over  u  Unter  den  Lin- 
den." 

Thunder  kettles, 

Swung  above  green  lightning  fires, 

Forked  and  spired  lightning 

Cooking  candy. 

Bubble,  froth,  stew ! 

Stir,  old  women ; 

Stir,  Generals  and  spur-heeled  young 
officers; 

Stir,  misshapen  Kaiser, 

And  shake  the  steam  from  your  up- 
turned moustachios. 

Streaked  and  polished  candy  you  make 
here, 


Red  and  Green  Comfits  57 

With  hot  sugar  and  —  other  things; 

Strange  powders  and  liquids 

Dropped  out  of  little  flasks, 

Drop  — 

Drop  — 

Into  the  bubbling  sugar, 

And  all  Germany  laughs. 

For    years     the     people    have     eaten 

the   currants    and   honey   of   Bar-le- 

Duc, 
Now  they  will  give  back  sweetness  for 

sweetness. 

Ha  !  Ha  !  Ha !  from  Posen  to  Munich. 
Ha  !  Ha !  Ha  I  in  Schleswig-Holstein. 
Ha !  Ha !  Ha  I  flowing  along  with  the 

Rhine  waves. 
Ha !  Ha !  Ha !  echoing  round  the  caves 

of  Riigen. 

Germany  splits  its  sides  with  laughing, 
And  sets  out  its  candles  for  the  coming 

of  the  Christ-child. 

:t  Heilige  Nacht !  "  and  great  white  birds 

flying  over  Germany. 
Are  the  storks  returning  in  mid-Winter? 


58  How  to  Read  Poetry 

"  Heilige  Nacht !  "  the  tree  is  lit  and  the 

gifts  are  ready. 
Steady,  great  birds,  you  have  flown  past 

Germany, 
And  are  hanging  over  Bar-le-Duc,   in 

France. 

The  moon  is  bright, 
The  moon  is  clear, 
Come,   little   Children,   the   fairies   are 

here. 
The  good  German   fairies  who  heard 

your  prayer, 

See  them  floating  in  the  star-pricked  air. 
The  cornucopias  shake  on  the  tree, 
And  the  star-lamps  glitter  brilliantly. 

A  shower  of  comfits,  a  shower  of  balls, 
Peppermint,  chocolate,  marzipan  falls. 
Red  and  white  spirals  glint  in  the  moon. 
Soon  the  fairies  answered  you  — 
Soon! 
Soon! 

Bright  are  the  red  and  white  streaked 
candies  in  the  moonlight : 


Red  and  Green  Comfits  50) 

White  corpse  fingers  pointing  to  the  sky, 
Round  blood-drops  glistening  like  rubies. 
Fairyland  come  true : 
Just  pick  and  pick  and  suck,  and  chew. 
Sugar  and  sweetness  at  last, 
Shiny  stuff  of  joy  to  be  had  for  the  gath- 
ering. 

The  blood-drops  melt  on  the  tongue, 
The  corpse  fingers  splinter  and  crumble. 
Weep  white  tears,  Moon. 
Soon !    So  soon ! 

Something  rattles  behind  a  hedge, 

Rattles  —  rattles. 

An  old  skeleton  is  sitting  on  its  thigh- 
bones 

And  holding  its  giggling  sides. 

Ha!    Ha!    Ha! 

Bar-le-Duc  had  currants  red, 

Now  she  has  instead  her  dead. 

Little  children,  sweet  as  honey, 

Bright  as  currants, 

Like  berries  snapped  off  and  packed  in 
coffins. 

The  skeleton  dances, 


60  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Dances  in  the  moonlight, 

And  his  fingers  crack  like  castanets. 

In  blue,  peaked  Germany 
The  cooks  wear  iron  crosses, 
And  the  scullery  maids  trip  to  church 
In  new  ribbons  sent  from  Potsdam. 

—  Amy  Lowell, 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  "NEW"  POETRY,  SO-CALLED 

THE  first  thing  to  be  said  about  the 
"new"  poetry  is  that  its  name  is  a  mis- 
nomer. The  term  vers  libre  —  free  verse 
—  may  be  new,  but  the  thing  itself  is  at  least 
as  old  as  Milton. 

In  the  "  Samson  Agonistes  "  choruses  free 
verse  of  the  freest  and  finest  is  employed  to 
great  effect — and  because,  as  the  poetic  revo- 
lutionists of  the  present  are  loud  in  acclaim- 
ing, Milton  saw  and  knew  that  not  every  need 
is  filled  by  the  regular  rhythm. 

Southey  and  Shelley  both  at  times  worked 
in  free  verse  or  "  rhythmus,"  as  Harold  W. 
Gammans  has  called  this  form  of  poetic  ex- 
pression. The  nineteenth  century,  antedat- 
ing the  free  verse  wave  and  notoriety, 
saw  much  good  work  of  the  kind  produced. 

A  regular  rhythm,  to  state  the  formal 
argument  for  free  verse,  is  a  sound-pattern, 
and  conventionalized  patterns  never  can  be 

61 


62  How  to  Read  Poetry 

fitted  to  every  kind  and  type  or  idea  or  mate- 
rial. The  strongest  argument  in  favor  of 
free  verse  lies  in  the  fact  that  poetry,  as  an 
interpreter  of  life,  must  reproduce  many 
kinds  and  phases  of  life  aspects.  For  those 
emotional  climaxes  and  crises  which  "strike 
the  poet  in  broken  flashes" — in  swift,  cha- 
otic, fragmentary  perceptions  —  free  verse 
offers  a  medium  undeniably  fluid  and  fine. 

It  is'  for  this  very  reason  that  free  verse, 
"  a  verse-form  based  upon  cadence,"  upon 
balanced  "flow  and  rhythm"  and  more  or 
less  definite  utime  units"  rather  than  upon 
rhyme,  in  all  probability  gradually  will  claim 
but  its  own  place  —  a  place  assured  and 
honored  but  perhaps  not  too  large  or  promi- 
nent—  in  modern  poetry.  It  has  its  own 
distinct  and  special  virtues,  but  for  the 
greater,  more  sustained  events  and  emotions 
its  medium  will  not  adequately  suffice. 

Whitman,  long  before  the  dawn  of  the 
recent  free  verse  enthusiasm,  employed  free 
verse  rhymes  and  cadences  with  absolute  sure- 
ness  and  spontaneity.  "Leaves  of  Grass" 
he  described  as  "  an  attempt  to  give  the  spirit, 


The  "New  "  Poetry,  So-Called     63 

the  body,  and  the  man,  new  words,  new  poten- 
tialities of  speech  — an  American,  a  cosmo- 
politan (for  the  best  of  America  is  the  best 
cosmopolitanism)  range  of  self  expression." 
Whitman,  therefore,  antedated  present  use 
of  the  "  language  of  the  street,"  with  its 
democratic  revolt  against  conventionality  and 
conventional  implications,  in  a  manner  that 
did  much  to  set  free  the  contemporary  poet 
from  the  custom-forged  fetters  of  the  past. 

"The  Americans,"  again  according  to  the 
sturdy  Walt,  "  are  going  to  be  the  most  fluent 
and  melodious-voiced  people  in  the  world  — 
and  the  most  fluent  and  the  most  perfect  users 

of  words The  .new  times,  the 

new  people,  the  new  vista" — how  strange 
and  terrible  and  colossal  a  vista,  moreover, 
Whitman,  although  in  a  large  sense  prophet 
no  less  than  poet,  never  dreamed — uneed  a 
tongue  according  —  yes,  and  what  is  more, 
they  will  have  such  a  tongue." 

Free  verse,  perhaps  Whitman's  "new 
tongue,"  may  be  summed  quite  simply.  It 
means,  in  a  word,  little  more  than  a  combina- 
tion of  revolt  against  the  possibly  over-stated 


64  How  to  Read  Poetry 

but  indubitable  conventionality,  mock  mod- 
esty and  sentimental  prettiness  of  the  Vic- 
torian era,  and  that  periodical  u  return  to  the 
soil"  or  root  or  fundamentals  of  things  that 
mankind  experiences  with  cyclic  and  inevita- 
ble regularity.  Much  of  it  is  being  written 
for  the  same  reason  that  the  Elizabethan 
dramatists  wrote  beautiful  blank  verse;  be- 
cause it  represents  the  most  easy  and  natural 
mode  for  the  writers  —  as  natural  as  the 
buoyant  optimism  and  confidence  of  Vachel 
Lindsay,  the  grim  pessimism  of  Masters  or 
the  tragic  tenderness  of  Olive  Tilford  Dar- 
gan.  Much  more  is  being  written  because  the 
writers,  feeling  a  strong  poetic  impulse,  fail 
to  carry  it  to  legitimate  or  logical  conclusion, 
to  complete  the  inner  processes  of  composi- 
tion, or  to  take  the  pains  necessary  for  poetic 
perfection.  Much,  much  more  is  being  writ- 
ten, has  been  written,  from  a  desire  to  be  in 
the  poetic  fashion,  to  attract  attention,  to 
achieve  notoriety  by  becoming  bold,  brazen, 
or  bizarre. 

The  "new"  poets  themselves  are  greatly 
at  variance  in  regard  to  the  purpose  and  vir- 


The  "New  "  Poetry,  So-Called     65 

tues,  or  even  quality  and  character,  of  free 
verse.  William  Dean  Howells,  later  the 
author  of  successful  free  verse  narratives, 
once  described  free  verse,  rather  contemptu- 
ously, as  "  shredded  prose."  John  Bur- 
roughs, vitally  interested  in  all  serious  poetic 
developments,  has  gone  on  record  as  finding 
that  many  of  the  free  verse  writers  seem  to 
have  no  real  message. 

"They  strive  so  awfully  after  form,"  he 
told  a  recent  seeker  after  information.  ;t  If 
they  had  anything  real  to  say,  the  form  would 
come  of  itself  and  there  would  be  no  need  of 
all  this  contortion  and  acrobation.  Now, 
there  was  an  osseous  frame  to  Whitman's 
poetry.  He  had  something  so  vital  to  say 
that  his  message  almost  said  itself" — in  the 
manner,  be  it  noted,  that  Mr.  Ficke  attributes 
to  poetic  messages  of  far  different  order. 
4  Yet  I  remember  what  a  great  reviser  of  his 
own  work  he  was.  Loose  as  his  verse  form 
may  seem  to  some,  he  was  as  careful  with 
every  syllable  of  it  as  though  he  were  forg- 
ing a  delicate  chain  of  gold." 

On  the  other  hand,  Ezra  Pound,  one  of 


66  How  to  Read  Poetry 

the  earliest  and  most  persistent  of  poetic  in- 
surgents, before  the  insurgent  era  of  his 
poetic  development  known  as  a  writer  of 
delicate  conventional  poems  and  translations, 
not  only  believes  that  the  poet  having  "  some- 
thing real  to  say"  can  say  it  most  effectively 
in  the  free  verse  manner,  but  can  advance  tell- 
ing arguments  to  support  even  the  striving 
"  so  awfully  after  form." 

"  Cart  you  teach  the  American  poet,"  he 
asked  Harriet  Monroe,  successful  poet  of 
more  than  one  order  and  editor  of  Poetry, 
when  this  now  famous  Chicago  u  Magazine 
of  Verse"  was  still  in  its  tentative  stage  — 
"  can  you  teach  the  American  poet  that  poetry 
is  an  art,  an  art  with  a  technique,  with  media, 
an  art  that  must  be  in  constant  flux  —  a  con- 
stant change  of  manner  —  if  it  is  to  live?  Can 
you  teach  him  that  it  is  not  a  pentametric  echo 
of  the  sociological  dogma  printed  in  last  year's 
magazines?" 

The  art  of  much  of  Mr.  Pound's  poetry 
surely  is  the  art  that  conceals  art,  while  his 
technique  is  quite  too  uncertain  —  or  involved 
—  for  popular  conception.  But  Mr.  Pound 


The  "New "  Poetry,  So-Called     67 

and  his  followers,  in  getting  away  from  cer- 
tain belittling  limitations  of  the  majority  of 
their  predecessors,  in  all  reasonable  probabil- 
ity have  rendered  the  poetic  art  good  service. 
Its  career  as  a  spectacular  sensation  ended  — 
Pound,  we  remember,  has  admitted  certain  of 
his  earlier  free  verse  work  merely  "  a  seven 
days'  wonder  in  Chicago " — the  right  of 
untrammeled  poetic  freedom  established, 
free  verse  may  well  settle  down  as  a  regular 
and  recognized  branch  of  poetic  expression. 
Josephine  Preston  Peabody,  exquisite  poet 
of  the  "old"  order,  feels  that  there  is  not  so 
much  a  "new  movement"  in  poetry  as  "  an 
eddy,  related  to  movement,  or  progress,  as  a 
side-eddy  is  related  to  the  main  current  of  a 


river." 


The  " working  faith"  of  this  veritable 
"  sweet  singer"  stands  thus  self  character- 
ized: "To  the  worker,  his  choice  of  tools. 
To  the  reader,  his  own  delights." 

Sara  Teasdale,  another  exquisite  worker 
with  the  standard  poetic  medium,  voices  a 
similar  catholicity  of  feeling. 

"There  is  no  surer  sign  of  a  vigorous  art 


68  How  to  Read  Poetry 

than  violent  differences  of  opinion  among  the 
people  who  practice  it.  So  far  as  the  respec- 
tive merits  of  free  verse  and  melodic  rhymed 
verse  go,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  question  is 
wholly  one  of  the  individuality  of  the  poet 
and  of  the  nature  of  his  subject.  It  is  a  ques- 
tion of  fitness.  The  idea  of  such  a  poem  as 
Burns'  '  Ye  Banks  and  Braes  o'  Bonnie  Boon ' 
in  free  verse  is  painful.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  war  poem  by  Amy  Lowell  called  'The 
Cornucopia  of  Red  and  Green  Comfits '  [the 
poem  immediately  preceding  this  chapter]  is 
so  perfectly  wedded  to  its  form  —  a  vivid, 
rapid,  free  verse  with  unexpected  and  most 
telling  rhymes  —  that  one  could  not  conceive 
how  it  could  have  been  so  powerful  in  any 
other  form." 

Again,  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson,  in- 
cluded by  Amy  Lowell  among  the  six  notable 
American  poets,  all  of  later  manner,  studied 
in  her  illuminating  "Tendencies  in  Modern 
American  Poetry,"  yet  who  as  frequently  in- 
dulges in  beautiful  rhyming  as  in  free  verse 
rhythms,  entertains  similar  ideas. 

uYou  ask  me,"  so  the  dictum  included  by 


The  "New  "  Poetry,  So-Called     69 

Lloyd  R.  Morris  in  the  interesting  "  anthol- 
ogy of  opinion  on  the  aims  and  tendencies  of 
the  American  literature  of  today  and  tomor- 
row" called  uThe  Young  Idea"  and  mainly 
devoted  to  poetic  matters,  "  if  I  think  there  is 
a  new  movement  in  poetry,  and  my  reply  is 
that  there  is  always  a  new  movement  in 
poetry.  There  is  always  a  new  movement  in 
everything,  including  each  new  inch  of  each 
new  revolution  of  the  earth  around  the  sun. 
But  if  you  mean  to  ask  me  if  this  new  move- 
ment implies  necessarily  any  radical  change 
in  the  structure  or  in  the  general  nature  of 
what  the  world  has  agreed  to  call  poetry,  I 
shall  have  to  tell  you  that  I  do  not  think  so. 

.  .  .  In  referring  to  a  new  movement 
I  assume  that  you  refer  primarily  to  vers 
libre  —  a  form,  or  lack  of  form,  that  may  or 
may  not  produce  pleasant  results." 

Miss  Lowell  herself,  American  high  priest- 
ess of  the  unew  movement,"  says: 

'  When  people  speak  of  the  4  New  Poetry,' 
they  generally  mean  that  poetry  which  is  writ- 
ten in  the  newer,  freer  form.  But  such  a  dis- 
tinction is  misleading  in  the  extreme,  for, 


70  How  to  Read  Poetry 

after  all,  forms  are  merely  forms,  of  no  par- 
ticular value  unless  they  are  the  necessary  and 
adequate  clothing  to  some  particular  manner 
of  thought." 

The  "New  Poetry"  to  Miss  Lowell,  then, 
means,  mainly,  a  new  manner  of  poetic  think- 
ing, incidentally  a  new  manner  of  expressing 
that  thinking  in  lines  and  words. 

Some  such  basic  understanding  or  concep- 
tion is  liighly  necessary,  surely,  when  consid- 
ering such  widely  differing  exponents  of  the 
"new"  poetic  school  as  Robert  Frost,  and 
Masters,  as  Ezra  Pound  and  Eunice  Tietjens, 
or  Carl  Sandburg  and  "  H.  D." 

Says  Miss  Lowell  further: 

"The  modern  poets  are  less  concerned 
with  dogma  and  more  with  truth.  They  see 
in  the  universe  a  huge  symbol,  and  so  absolute 
has  this  symbol  become  to  them  that  they 
have  no  need  to  dwell  constantly  upon  its 
symbolic  meaning.  For  this  reason,  the  sym- 
bol has  taken  on  a  new  intensity,  and  is  given 
much  prominence.  What  appear  to  be  pure 
nature  poems  are  of  course  so,  but  in  a  differ- 
ent way  from  most  nature  poems  of  the  older 


The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Called     71 

writers;  for  nature  is  not  now  something  sep- 
arate from  man,  man  and  nature  are  recog- 
nized as  part  of  a  whole,  man  being  a  part 
of  nature,  and  all  falling  into  a  place  in  a  vast 
plan,  the  key  to  which  is  natural  science. 

uln  some  modern  American  poets  this  at- 
:itude  is  more  conscious  than  in  others,  but  all 

iave  been  affected  by  it;  it  has  modified 
poetry,  as  it  is  more  slowly  modifying  the 
whole  of  our  social  fabric. 

'What  sets  the  poets  of  today  apart  from 
those  of  the  Victorian  era  is  an  entire  differ- 
ence of  outlook.  Ideas  believed  to  be  funda- 
mental have  disappeared  and  given  place  to 
others.  And  as  poetry  is  the  expression  of 
the  heart  of  man,  so  it  reflects  this  change  to 
the  smallest  particle." 

All  of  which,  of  course,  is  but  another  man- 

ter  of  saying  that  modern  poetry,  the  poetry 
of  all  nations,  but  especially,  perhaps,  of 
America,  is  merely  undergoing  changes  notice- 

ible  in  all  other  forms  of  human  existence 
and  development.  But  it  should  be  noted,  in 
this  connection,  that  not  all  modern  poets 
feel  the  need  of  the  highly  symbolic  medium 


72  How  to  Read  Poetry 

—  so  symbolic,  in  some  cases,  as  to  become 
decidedly  obscure.  Consider,  for  illustration, 
that  doubly  characteristic  excerpt  from  the 
"Lustra"  of  Ezra  Pound,  " Women  Before 
a  Shop:" 

The  gew-gaws  of  false  amber  and  false 

turquoise  attract  them. 
"  Like  to  like  nature : "  those  agglutinous 

yellows ! 

Which  delightful  fragment,  like  many  of 
its  distinctly  imagistic  fellows,  indubitably 
means  more  to  the  writer  than  to  the  general 
reader.  The  question  is  whether  or  not  it  is 
wise  or  artistic  to  invade  poetic  areas  with 
material  so  bound,  in  Mr.  Pound's  own  words 
concerning  certain  of  his  own  poems,  to  be- 
come "  a  very  depleted  fashion,  .... 
A  homely,  transient  antiquity."  Such  poetry, 
if,  for  the  moment  and  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, we  concede  the  title,  is  not  of  the  sort 
that  lives. 

Or  analyze,  for  second  specimen,  Walter 
Conrad  Arensberg's  "  Ing." 


The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Called     73 

Ing?     Is  it  possible  to  mean  ing? 
Suppose 

for  the  termination  in  g 

a  disoriented 
series 
of   the   simple   fractures 

in  sleep. 

Soporific 
has  accordingly  a  value  for  soap 

so  present  to 
sew  pieces. 

And  p  says:   Peace  is. 
And  suppose  the  i 

to  be  big  in  ing 
as  Beginning. 

Then  Ing  is  to  ing 
as  aloud 

accompanied  by  times 
and  the  meaning  is  a  possibility 

of  ralsis. 

Decidedly,  distinctly,  "  revolutionary,"  not 
to  say  interesting,  that  strange  —  collection  of 
words.  But  is  it  poetry?  Defer  decisive 
judgment  by  terse  recapitulation  of  the 
"new"  poetry's  principal  tenets  and  aims  as 
expressed  in  the  "  Imagistic  Creed  "  self  ac- 
claimed by  the  comparatively  small  group  of 
writers  who,  because  of  the  marked  peculiari- 
ties of  their  chosen  modes,  have  been  credited 
with  more  than  their  fair  share  of  "new 
poetry"  glory  and  fame. 

i.  To  use  the  language  of  common  speech, 
but  to  employ  always  the  exact  word,  not  the 


74  How  to  Read  Poetry 

near-exact,  nor  the  merely  decorative  word. 

2.  To  create  new  rhythms  —  as  the  expres- 
sion of  new  moods  —  and  not  to  copy  old 
rhythms,  which  merely  echo  old  moods.     We 
do  not  insist  upon  u  f ree  verse"  as  the  only 
method  of  writing  poetry.    We  fight  for  it  as 
a  principle  of  liberty.     We  believe  that  the 
individuality  of  a  poet  may  often  be  better 
expressed  in  free  verse  than  in  conventional 
form.    In  poetry  a  new  cadence  means  a  new 
idea. 

3.  To  allow  absolute  freedom  in  the  choice 
of  subject.     It  is  not  good  art  to  write  badly 
of  aeroplanes  and  automobiles,  nor  is  it  neces- 
sarily bad  art  to  write  well  about  the  past. 
We  believe  passionately  in  the  artistic  values 
of  modern  life,  but  we  wish  to  point  out  that 
there  is  nothing  so  uninspiring  nor  so  old- 
fashioned  as  an  aeroplane  of  the  year  1911. 

4.  To  present  an  image  (hence  the  name: 
"Imagist").    We  are  not  a  school  of  paint- 
ers, but  we  believe  that  poetry  should  render 
particulars  exactly  and  not  deal  in  vague  gen- 
eralities, however  magnificent  and  sonorous. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  we  oppose  the  cosmic 


The  "New  "  Poetry,  So-Called     75 

poet,  who  seems  to  us  to  shirk  the  real  diffi- 
culties of  his  art. 

5.  To  produce  poetry  that  is  hard  and 
clear,  never  blurred  nor  indefinite. 

6.  Finally,  most  of  us  believe  that  concen- 
tration is  of  the  very  essence  of  poetry. 

The  brief  creed  so  expressed  —  not 
pledged  —  by  the  primary  Imagists  was  pre- 
ceded by  this  significant  declaration: 

4 These  principles  are  not  new;  they  have 
fallen  into  desuetude.  They  are  the  essen- 
tials of  all  great  poetry,  indeed  of  all  great 
literature." 

Miss  Lowell  amplifies: 

"It  is  not  primarily  on  account  of  their 
forms,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  that  the  Im- 
agist  poets  represent  a  changed  point  of 
view;  it  is  because  of  their  reactions  toward 
the  world  in  which  they  live." 

The  "new"  poetry,  however,  setting  aside 
the  work  of  the  Imagists,  who,  by  their  decla- 
ration of  poetic  independence  and  practical 
outworking  of  its  tenets,  would  seem  at  once  to 
have  "done  their  bit"  and  served  their  turn, 


How  to  Read  Poetry 


and  such  ephemeral  ultra-novelty-mongers  as 
the  Vorticists,  Spectricists,  etc.  —  mainly,  as 
previously  suggested,  is  concerned  with  new 
ideas  quite  as  much  as  with  new  modes  of 
expression  —  which  makes  the  task  of  distin- 
guishing between  followers  of  the  "  old"  and 
"  new  "  schools  occasionally  rather  difficult. 

Miss  Lowell,  who  must  be  admitted  an  au- 
thority in  such  connection,  includes  in  her 
recent  study  only  six  poets,  namely,  Edward 
Arlington  Robinson,  Robert  Frost,  Edgar 
Lee  Masters,  Carl  Sandburg,  "H.  D."  or 
Mrs.  Richard  Aldington  (Hilda  Doolittle), 
and  John  Gould  Fletcher  —  paying  but  pass- 
ing tribute  to  Vachel  Lindsay,  William  Rose 
Benet,  Louis  Untermeyer,  James  Oppenheim, 
Eunice  Tietjens,  Ezra  Pound,  and  others  of 
generally  accredited  "new  poetry"  ilk. 

For  general  purposes,  because  the  six  poets 
named  typify  all  the  combined  and  distin- 
guishing characteristics  of  the  newer  poetic 
era,  her  grouping  may  be  maintained. 

Mr.  Robinson  and  Mr.  Frost,  in  Miss 
Lowell's  opinion,  "  represent  various  things 
in  the  'new  movement'  —  realism,  direct 


The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Called     77 

speech,  simplicity,  and  the  like."  The  work 
of  Mr.  Masters  and  Mr.  Sandburg  she  re- 
gards as  "  being  the  most  revolutionary  that 
America  has  yet  produced."  Fletcher  and 
"H.  D.,"  of  course,  are  Imagists  pure  and 
simple.  The  English  Imagists  Miss  Lowell 
defines  as  Richard  Aldington,  F.  S.  Flint,  and 
D.  H.  Lawrence.  ("  H.  D."  though  resident 
in  London,  is  o*f  American  rearing  and  birth.) 

Since  illustration  is  of  all  educational  meth- 
ods most  useful,  these  and  other  representa- 
tive "new"  poets  herewith  shall  be  allowed 
to  speak  for  themselves. 

Of  all  the  "new"  poetry  no  single  ex- 
ample, perhaps,  has  been  so  much,  so  vari- 
ously quoted  as  the  " Oread"  of  UH.  D.," 
largely  because  its  six  lines  comprise  such  per- 
fect specimen  of  the  "  cadenced  verse  "  which 
is  really  free  verse  in  that  it  utterly  relin- 
guishes  all  thought  of  regulation  meters  and 
rhymes. 

Whirl  up,  sea  — 

Whirl  your  pointed  pines. 

Splash  your  great  pines 


78  How  to  Read  Poetry 

On  our  rocks. 

Hurl  your  green  over  us  — 

Cover  us  with  your  pools  of  fir. 

"  It  will  be  quickly  seen,"  says  Miss  Lowell, 
discussing  "  Oread,"  "  that  this  poem  is  made 
up  of  five  cadences,  4  Whirl  up,  sea — '  is  one 
cadence;  *  Whirl  your  pointed  pines,'  is  an- 
other; '  Splash  your  great  pines  on  our  rocks,' 
is  a  third;  'Hurl  your  green  over  us,'  a 
fourth;  and  the  fifth,  'Cover  us  with  your 
pools  of  fir'." 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Aldington,  it  is  explained, 
never  "  permit  themselves  occasional  lines 
which  might  be  timed  by  the  old  scansion," 
not  even  should  these  occur  most  naturally. 
They  are  faithful  to  the  newer  utime  units 
which  are  in  no  sense  syllabic,"  depending 
upon  the  manner  of  reading — the  hurrying 
or  delaying  of  such  words  as  seem  necessary 
—  to  "  fill  out  the  swing  of  the  lines." 

"Sea  Gods"  is  one  of  the  flower  poems 
for  which  "H.  D."  is  famous,  and  it  also  is 
one  of  her  most  characteristic.  Part  of  this 
poem  follows : 


The  "New "  Poetry,  So-Called     79 

But  we  bring  violets, 
Great  masses  —  single,  sweet, 
Wood-violets,  stream-violets, 
Violets  from  a  wet  marsh. 

Violets  in  clumps  from  hills, 
Tufts  with  earth  at  the  roots, 
Violets  tugged  from  rocks, 
Blue-violets,  moss,   cliff,   river-violets. 

Yellow  violets'  gold, 
Burnt  with  a  rare  tint  — 
Violets  like  red  ash 
Among  tufts  of  grass. 

We  bring  deep-purple 
Bird-foot  violets. 

We  bring  the  hyacinth-violets, 
Sweet,  bare,  chill  to  the  touch  — 
And  violets  whiter  than  the  in-rush 
Of  your  own  white  surf. 

Contrast  this  lovely  offering  of  the  violets 
to  the  sea  gods,  its  daringly  beautiful  reitera- 


80  How  to  Read  Poetry 

tion  of  the  violet  theme,  with  one  of  the 
equally  famous  rain  poems  of  John  Gould 
Fletcher,  the  other  American  Imagist  best 
known  for  this  kind  of  work. 

Over  the  roof-tops  race  the  shadows  of 

clouds : 
Like  horses  the  shadows  of  clouds  charge 

down  the  street. 

Whirlpools  of  purple  and  gold, 

Winds  from  the  mountains  of  cinna- 
bar, 

Lacquered  mandarin  moments,  palan- 
quins swaying  and  balancing 

Amid  the  vermilion  pavilions,  against 
the  jade  balustrades; 

Glint  of  the  glittering  wings  of  dragon- 
flies  in  the  light; 

Silver  filaments,  golden  flakes  settling 
downwards, 

Rippling,  quivering  flutters,  repulse  and 
surrender, 

The  sun  broidered  upon  the  rain, 

The  rain  rustling  with  the  sun. 


The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Called     81 

Over  the  roof-tops  race  the  shadows  of 

clouds : 
Like  horses  the  shadows  of  clouds  charge 

down  the  street. 

To  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  scope  and  ver- 
satility of  this  poet,  who  believes  that  "  poetry 
is  capable  of  as  many  gradations  in  cadence 
as  music  is  in  time,"  follow  perusal  of  the  just 
given  poem,  with  its  strong,  sweeping,  rush- 
ing movement,  by  perusal  of  the  following, 
also  representing — rather  than  describing — 
rain: 

The  spattering  of  the  rain  upon  pale  ter- 
races 

Of  afternoon  is  like  the  passing  of  a 
dream 

Amid  the  roses  shuddering  'gainst  the 
wet  green  stalks 

Of  the  streaming  trees  —  the  passing  of 
the  wind 

Upon  the  pale  lower  terraces  of  my 
dream 

Is  like  the  crinkling  of  the  wet  gray 
robes 


82  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Of  the  hours  that  come  to  turn  over  the 
urn 

Of  the  day  and  spill  its  rainy  dream. 

Vague  movement  over  the  puddled  ter- 
races: 

Heavy  gold  pennons — a  pomp  of  sol- 
emn gardens 

Half  hidden  under  the  liquid  veil  of 
spring: 

Far  trumpets  like  a  vague  rout  of  faded 
roses 

Burst  'gainst  the  wet  green  silence  of  dis- 
tant forests: 

A  clash  of  cymbals  —  then  the  swift 
swaying  footsteps 

Of  the  wind  that  undulates  along  the 
languid  terraces. 

Pools  of  rain  —  the  vacant  terraces 

Wet,  chill,  and  glistening 

Towards  the  sunset  beyond  the  broken 
doors  of  today. 

It  might  almost  be  said  that  the  whole 
theory  and  philosophy  of  free  verse,  \from 
origin  to  popular  justification,  lies  in  the  pic- 


The  "New "  Poetry,  So-Called     83 

ture-making  suggestions,  the  slow,  languorous 
rhythm  of  those  lines. 

Edgar  Lee  Masters,  with  his  wonderful 
psychology  and  power  of  character  portrait- 
ure, his  hard,  ironic  humor,  and  his  encroach- 
ing obsession  of  sex,  may  be  placed  at  the 
gamut  end  farthest  opposed  to  the  position 
occupied  by  Fletcher  and  "  H.  D."  To  many 
his  remarkable  "  Spoon  River  Anthology " 
belongs  rather  in  the  realm  of  psychology 
than  of  poetry,  but  the  poetic  beauty  of  count- 
less included  cadences,  as  the  incisive  appeal 
of  the  haunting,  embodying  epitaphs,  is  unde- 
niable. The  tragedy  that  Mr.  Masters  loves 
best — in  the  "  Anthology,"  indeed,  is  lit- 
tle but  tragedy,  mental,  physical,  moral,  spir- 
itual, and  that  of  the  grimmest  —  is  well 
expressed  in  uElsa  Wertman,"  piteous  as 
strong. 

I  was  a  peasant  girl  from  Germany, 
Blue-eyed,  rosy,  happy,  and  strong. 
And  the   first  place   I  worked  was  at 

Thomas  Greene's. 
On  a  summer's  day  when  she  was  away 


84  How  to  Read  Poetry 

He  stole  into  the  kitchen  and  took  me 
Right  in  his  arms  and  kissed  me  on  my 

throat, 

I  turning  my  head.    Then  neither  of  us 
Seemed  to  know  what  happened. 
And  I  cried  for  what  would  become  of 

me. 
And  cried  and  cried  as  my  secret  began 

to  show. 

One  vday  Mrs.  Greene  said  she  under- 
stood, 

And  would  make  no  trouble  for  me, 
And,  being  childless,  would  adopt  it. 
(He  had  given  her  a  farm  to  be  still.) 
So  she  hid  in  the  house  and  sent  out 

rumors, 

As  if  it  were  going  to  happen  to  her. 
And  all  went  well  and  the  child  was 

born —     They  were  so  kind  to  me. 
Later  I   married   Gus   Wertman,    and 

years  passed. 
But  —  at  political  rallies  when  sitters-by 

thought  I  was  crying 
At  the  eloquence  of  Hamilton  Greene  — 
That  was  not  it. 


The  "New "  Poetry,  So-Called     85 

No!     I  wanted  to  say: 

That's  my  son!     That's  my  son! 


u  Hamilton  Greene,"  a  subsequent  epitaph, 
gives  another  phrase  of  the  indicated  story 
and  rounds  out  the  typical  Masters  manner 
and  idea. 

I  was  the  only  child  of  Frances  Harris 

of  Virginia 

And  Thomas  Greene  of  Kentucky, 
Of  valiant  and  honorable  blood  both. 
To  them  I  owe  all  that  I  became, 
Judge,  member  of  Congress,  leader  in 

the  State. 

From  my  mother  I  inherited 
Vivacity,  fancy,  language; 
From  my  father  will,  judgment,  logic. 
All  honor  to  them 
For  what  service  I  was  to  the  people ! 

The  peculiar  form  in  which  the  "Anthol- 
ogy "  poems  —  supposedly  written  or  spoken 
by  the  dead  folk  in  the  cemetery  —  are  cast 


86  How  to  Read  Poetry 

provides  opportunity  for  curious  effects, 
curiously  quaint  and  impressive,  but  Mr. 
Masters'  half  realistic,  half  romantic  method 
has  been  effectively  employed  in  other  ways. 
Carl  Sandburg,  quite  differently  grim  and 
stern,  yet  with  an  underlying  vein  of  tender- 
ness clearly  to  be  discerned  by  the  sympa- 
thetic, shall  not  here  be  represented  by  "  Chi- 
cago," which  first  brought  him  national  if  not 
international  reputation,  but  by  excerpts  from 
uThe  Four  Brothers,"  (forming  part  of  the 
later  "Notes  for  War  Songs")  and  from 
the  earlier  group  of  poems  generically  en- 
titled "Days." 

Look!     It  is   four  brothers  in  joined 

hands  together, 

The  people  of  bleeding  France, 
The  people  of  bleeding  Russia, 
The  people  of  Britain,  the  people  of 

America  — 
These  are  the  four  brothers,  these  are 

the  four  republics. 

At  first  I  said  it  in  anger  as  one  who 
clenches  his  fist  in 


The  "New "  Poetry,  So-Called     87 

wrath  to  fling  his  knuckles  in  the  face 
of  someone  taunting; 

Now  I  say  it  calmly  as  one  who  has 
thought  it  over  and  over  again  at 
night,  among  the  mountains,  by  the 
sea-combers  in  storm. 

I  say  now,  by  God,  only  fighters  today 
will  save  the  world,  nothing  but  fight- 
ers will  keep  alive  the  names  of  those 
who  left  red  prints  of  bleeding  feet  at 
Valley  Forge  in  Christmas  snow. 

On  the  cross  of  Jesus,  the  sword  of 
Napoleon,  the  skull  of  Shakespeare, 
the  pen  of  Tom  Jefferson,  the  ashes  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  or  any  sign  of  the 
red  and  running  life  poured  out  by 
the  mothers  of  the  world, 

By  the  God  of  morning  glories  climb- 
ing blue  the  doors  of  quiet  homes,  by 
the  God  of  tall  hollyhocks  laughing 
glad  to  children  in  peaceful  valleys, 
by  the  God  of  new  mothers  wishing 
peace  to  sit  at  windows  nursing  babies, 

I  swear  only  reckless  men,  ready  to 
throw  away  their  lives  by  hunger, 


88  How  to  Read  Poetry 

deprivation,  desperate  clinging  to  a 
single  purpose  imperturbable  and  un- 
daunted, men  with  the  primitive  guts 
of  rebellion, 

Only  fighters  gaunt  with  the  red  brand 
of  labor's  sorrow  on  their  brows  and 
labor's  terrible  pride  in  their  blood, 
men  with  souls  asking  danger  —  only 
these  will  save  and  keep  the  four  big 
brothers. 

Goodnight  is  the  word,  goodnight  to  the 
kings,  the  czars, 

Goodnight  to  the  kaiser. 

The  breakdown  and  the  fade-away  be- 
gins. 

The  shadow  of  a  great  broom,  ready  to 
sweep  out  the  truth,  is  here. 

One  finger  is  raised  that  counts  the 
czar, 

The  ghost  who  beckoned  men  who  come 
no  more  — 

The  czar  has  gone  to  the  winds  on  God's 
great  dustpan, 

The  czar  a  pinch  of  nothing, 

The  last  of  the  gibbering  Romanoffs. 


The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Called 

Out  and  goodnight  — 
The  ghosts  of  the  summer  palaces 
And  the  ghosts  of  the  winter  palaces ! 
Out  and  out,  goodnight  to  the  kings,  the 
czars,  the  kaisers. 

Another  singer  will  speak, 

And  the  kaiser,  the  ghost  who  gestures 

a   hundred   million    sleeping -waking 

ghosts, 
The  kaiser  will  go   onto   God's  great 

dustpan  — 
The   last  of  the  gibbering  Hohenzol- 

lerns. 
Look!    God  pities  this  trash,  God  waits 

with  a  broom  and  a  dustpan, 
God  knows  a  finger  will  speak  and  count 

them  out. 


"  Under  the  Harvest  Moon,"  one  of  the 
"Days"  group,  shows  Mr.  Sandburg  in  dif- 
ferent but  equally  characteristic  mood. 

Under  the  harvest  moon, 
When  the  soft  silver 


90  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Drips  shimmering 
Over  the  garden  nights, 
Death,  the  gray  mocker, 
Comes  and  whispers  to  you 
As  a  beautiful  friend 
Who  remembers. 

Under  the  summer  roses 
When  the  fragrant  crimson 
Lurks  in  the  dusk 
Of  the  wild  red  leaves, 
Love,  with  little  hands, 
Comes  and  touches  you 
With  a  thousand  memories, 
And  asks  you 
Beautiful,  unanswerable  questions. 

Mr.  Sandburg,  it  will  be  seen,  is  a  poet  of 
large  thoughts,  large  impulses,  large  ideas, 
and  large  rhythms.  Easy  to  understand  why 
not  for  him,  virile  to  the  point  of  brutality, 
strong  to  the  recurrent  edge  of  crudeness, 
rhyming,  lilting  line  limits,  or  even  the  meas- 
ured bounds  and  restrictions  of  majestic 
blank  verse. 


The  "'New "  Poetry,  So-Called     9* 

Remain,  of  Miss  Lowell's  grouping,  only 
Robert  Frost  and  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson 
to  be  considered.     Robinson,  musical,  pol- 
ished,  brilliant,   many-toned  poet,    shall  be 
more  adequately  considered  later,  his  well- 
earned  poetic  honors  being  by  no  means  of 
exclusively   "new"   order.     But  it  may  be 
said,    in  passing,   that   Robinson  is   one   of 
the  most  intellectual  contemporary  English- 
writing  poets,  just  as  Frost  is  one  of  the 
most    intuitive.     The    work    of    these    two 
men,  indeed,  has  much  in  common,  though 
that  of  Robinson  is  more  warmly  colored. 
Mr.   Frost  is   a  poetic  intellectual  too,  but 
to  him  much  that  Mr.  Robinson  carefully, 
consciously  records  has  become  second  na- 
ture.    Mr.  Frost,  again,  is  more  distinctly 
marked  by  the  "New  England  influence," 
in  that,  while  he  happened  to  be  born  in  San 
Francisco,  much  of  his  life  has  been  passed 
in  Massachusetts,  where  he  still  resides. 

Miss  Lowell  says  that  Frost  is  "  as  New 
England  as  Burns  is  Scotch,  Synge  Irish,  or 
Mistral  Provencal."  Robinson  in  spirit,  if 
not  in  expression,  suggests  a  wider  range. 


92  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Frost,  whose  poems  first  knew  English 
publication,  in  "  North  of  Boston,"  accord- 
ing to  its  author  a  sadly  piquant  "book  of 
people,"  tells  moving  stories,  generally  un- 
rhymed,  about  men,  women,  and  happenings 
inseparable  from  the  stern  soil  whence  they 
sprang.  These  poems,  which  mark  and  typify 
a  poetic  tendency  distinctly  new  at  the  time  of 
their  first  appearance,  and  still  distinctly  im- 
pressive, are  too  long  for  present  repetition. 
The  Frost  nature  poems  and  pastorals,  deli- 
cately austere  but  delicately  depictive  and  fine 
as  an  exquisite  etching,  are  subject  to  no  such 
restriction.  They  exemplify,  moreover,  the 
gift  for  lovely  rhyming  with  which  this  poet 
is  highly  endowed  and  which  he  still  does 
not  disdain  to  use  upon  occasion.  Take,  for 
example,  the  graceful  thought,  less  firm,  clean 
cut,  and  vigorous  than  many  to  come  later, 
but  of  indubitable  poetic  virtue,  that  makes  so 
real  a  fine  October  morning. 

Retard  the  sun  with  gentle  mist; 
Enchant  the  land  with  amethyst. 
Slow,  slow! 


The  "New  "  Poetry,  So-Called     93 

For  the  grapes'  sake,  if  they  were  all, 
Whose  leaves  already  are  burnt  with  frost, 
Whose  clustered  fruit  must  else  be  lost  — 
For  the  grapes'  sake  along  the  wall. 

This  fragment  suggests  anew  that  the  line 
of  demarcation  between  "old"  and  "new" 
poetry  frequently  lies  rather  in  attitude  than 
outworking,  save,  of  course,  where  the  most 
amazingly  individual  specimens  are  consid- 
ered. Any  real  poet,  of  any  age,  of  any  order, 
might,  in  so  far  as  verbalism  is  concerned, 
have  written  that  stanza,  though  not  every 
real  poet  might  have  put  into  it  just  the  dis- 
tinguishing tone  and  spirit.  A  fair  quotation 
from  the  later  "  Birches  "  may  suggest  more 
distinctive  Frost  material  and  mode. 

When  I  see  the  birches  bend  to  left  and 

right 
Across  the  lines  of  straighter,   darker 

trees, 
I  like  to  think  some  boy's  been  swinging 

them. 
But  swinging  doesn't  bend  them  down 

to  stay. 


94  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Ice-storms  do  that.  Often  you  must 
have  seen  them 

Loaded  with  ice  a  sunny  winter  morning 

After  a  rain.  They  click  upon  themselves 

As  the  breeze  rises,  and  turn  many- 
colored 

As  the  stir  cracks  and  crazes  their 
enamel. 

Soon  the  sun's  warmth  makes  them  shed 
crystal  shells 

Shattering  and  avalanching  on  the  snow- 
crust — 

Such  heaps  of  broken  glass  to  sweep 
away 

You'd  think  the  inner  dome  of  heaven 
had  fallen. 


Fd  like  to  get  away  from  earth  awhile 
And  then  come  back  to  it  and  begin  over. 
May  no  fate  wilfully  misunderstand  me 
And  half  grant  what  I  wish  and  snatch 

me  away 
Not  to  return.     Earth's  the  right  place 

for  love : 


The  "New "  Poetry,  So-Galled     95 

I  don't  know  where  it's  likely  to  go 
better. 

I'd  like  to  go  by  climbing  a  birch  tree, 

And  climb  black  branches  up  a  snow- 
white  trunk 

Toward  heaven,  till  the  tree  could  bear 
no  more, 

But  dipped  its  top  and  set  me  down 
again. 

That  would  be  good  both  going  and 
coming  back. 

One  could  do  worse  than  be  a  swinger 
of  birches. 

Mainly,  it  may  be  said,  Frost  is  a  poet  of 
tragedy,  the  hushed  and  hidden  tragedy  of 
soul  rather  than  body.  But  in  his  passion 
for  humanity,  his  love  of  nature,  his  sense 
of  human  and  earth  values,  he  proves  himself 
a  poet  of  all  emotions,  as,  perhaps,  of  all 
time. 

The  contention  that,  as  Miss  Lowell  main- 
tains, the  "  so-called  'new  movement'  in 
American  poetry  is  evidence  of  the  rise  of 
a  native  school"  receives  substantial  support 


96  How  to  Read  Poetry 

from  the  fact  that  so  many  American  poets 
now  employ  the  newer  medium  that  search 
for  characteristic  examples  suffers  from  em- 
barrassment of  riches.  But  from  the  wide 
and  full  field  offered,  certain  phases  and  pro- 
ductions of  two  other  unusual  poets,  Vachel 
Lindsay  and  Eunice  Tietjens,  shall  be  briefly 
surveyed. 

Lindsay,  true  poet  of  his  time,  yet  with 
traditional  traits  inherited  from  the  poets  of 
the  ages,  not  only  fulfils  Macaulay's  defini- 
tion of  poetry  as  "  the  art  of  employing  words 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  produce  an  illusion  on 
the  imagination,  the  art  of  doing  by  means 
of  words  what  the  painter  does  by  means  of 
colors,"  but  he  apparently  believes,  with 
Bailey,  that 

Poetry  is  itself  a  thing  of  God's; 
He  made  His  prophets  poets. 

For  Lindsay  has  as  clear  a  gift  for  the 
kind  of  prophecy  based  on  sympathetic  com- 
prehension and  interpretation  as  for  brave 
and  lyric  singing.  The  Lindsay  productions, 
be  they  upoem  games"  like  "The  Potatoes," 


The  "New "  Poetry,  So-Called     97 


"  King  Solomon  and  the  Queen  of  Sheba," 
or  such  masterly  efforts  as  uThe  Congo" 
and  "  General  Booth  Enters  Heaven,"  are 
not  only  rhythmic  and  rhymeful  but  strongly 
indicative  and  trenchant.  Lindsay  is  a  true 
modern  in  regard  to  freshness  of  subject  and 
treatment,  a  true  poet  in  his  unfailing  ability 
to  u  produce  an  illusion  on  the  imagination," 
to  read  and  reproduce  the  hearts  and  emo- 
tions of  his  fellows. 

'The  Congo,"  'This,  my  song  is  made 
for  Kerensky,"  here  are  great  poems,  of  the 
kind  that  makes  for  the  rebuilding  of  human- 
ity. 'The  Chinese  Nightingale"  is  real 
poetry  of  another  order,  that  which  ''pro- 
duces the  illusion"  of  vivid  color  and  move- 
ment and  strongly  stimulates  the  fancy.  "The 
Congo,"  with  its  stirring,  voodoo-like  refrain, 
'Then  I  saw  the  Congo  creeping  through 
the  black,"  should  not  be  wronged  by  piece- 
meal quotation,  but  a  vision  or  so  from  the 
breast  of  Chang,  the  San  Francisco  laundry- 
man  in  "The  Chinese  Nightingale,"  dream- 
ing of  bygone  glories  to  the  music  of  the 
"  gray  small  bird"  who 


H ow  to  Read  Poetry 


Sang  as  though  for  the  soul  of  him 
Who  ironed  away  in  that  bower  dim 

may  without  injustice  be  shared. 

"Where  is  the  princess,  loved  forever, 
Who  made  Chang  first  of  the  kings  of 
men?" 

And'the  joss  in  the  corner  stirred  again; 
And  the  carved  dog,  curled  in  his  arms, 

awoke, 
Barked  forth  a  smoke-cloud  that  whirled 

and  broke. 

It  piled  in  a  maze  round  the  ironing- 
place, 

And  there  on  the  snowy  table  wide 
Stood  a  Chinese  lady  of  high  degree, 
With     a    scornful,    witching,    tea-rose 

face     .... 

Yet  she  put  away  all  form  and  pride, 
And  laid  her  glimmering  veil  aside 
With  a  childlike  smile  for  Chang  and 
for  me. 


The  "New  "  Poetry,  So-Called     99 

Then  this  did  the  noble  lady  say : 

"  Bird,  do  you  dream  of  our  home- 
coming day 

When  you  flew  like  a  courier  on  before 

From  the  dragon-peak  to  our  palace- 
door, 

And  we  drove  the  steed  in  your  singing 
path  — 

The  ramping  Dragon  of  laughter  and 
wrath; 

And  found  our  city  all  aglow, 

And  knighted  this  joss  that  decked  it  so  ? 

There  were  golden  fishes  in  the  purple 
river 

And  silver  fishes  and  rainbow  fishes. 

There  were  golden  junks  in  the  laughing 
river, 

And  silver  junks  and  rainbow  junks : 

There  were  golden  lilies  by  the  bay  and 
river, 

And  silver  lilies  and  tiger-lilies, 

And  tinkling  wind-bells  in  the  gardens  of 
the  town 

By  the  black-lacquer  gate 

Where  walked  in  state 


IOO  How  to  Read  Poetry 

The  kind  king  Chang 

And  his  sweet-heart  mate     .... 

With  his  flag-born  dragon 

And    his    crown    of    pearl     .... 
and     ....     jade; 

And  his  nightingale  reigning  in  the  mul- 
berry shade, 

And    sailors   and  soldiers   on   the   sea- 
sands  brown, 

And  priests  who  bowed  them  down  to 
your  song  — 

By  the   city   called   Han,   the   peacock 
town, 

By  the  city  called  Han,  the  nightingale 
town, 

The  nightingale  town." 

..... 

"  I  have  forgotten 

Your  dragons  great, 

Merry  and  mad  and  friendly  and  bold. 

Dim  is  your  proud  lost  palace-gate. 

I  vaguely  know 

There  were  heroes  of  old, 

Troubles   more   than   the    heart  could 
hold, 


The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Called   101 

There  were  wolves  in  the  woods 

Yet  lambs  in  the  fold, 

Nests  in  the  top  of  the  almond 
tree     .... 

The  evergreen  tree  and  the  mulberry 
tree     .     .     .     . 

Life  and  hurry  and  joy  forgotten, 

Years  on  years  I  but  half  remem- 
ber    .... 

Man  is  a  torch,  then  ashes  soon, 

May  and  June,  then  dead  December, 

Dead  December,  then  again  June. 

Who  shall  end  my  dream's  confusion? 

Life  is  a  loom,  weaving  illusion    .    .    .    . 

I  remember,  I  remember 

There  were  ghostly  veils  and 
laces     .... 

In  the  shadowy,  bowery  places     .     .     .     . 

With  lovers'  ardent  faces 

Bending  to  one  another, 

Speaking  each  his  part, 

They  infinitely  echo 

In  the  red  cave  of  my  heart. 

" Sweetheart,  sweetheart,  sweetheart!  " 

They  said  to  one  another. 


IO2  How  to  Read  Poetry 

They  spoke,  I  think,  of  perils  past, 
They  spoke,  I  think,  of  peace  at  last. 
One  thing  I  remember : 
"  Spring  came  on  forever, 
Spring  came  on  forever," 
Said  the  Chinese  nightingale. 

Quite  another  interpretation  and  aspect  of 
China,  as  of  "new"  poetry,  is  suggested  by 
Eunice  Tietjens  in  "The  Shop,"  taken  from 
the  slight  yet  rich  collection  of  poetic  "  Profiles 
from  China,"  on  which  the  present  poetic 
fame  of  the  writer  principally  is  based.  The 
articles  sold  in  the  shop  specified  "  are  to  be 
burned  at  funerals  for  the  use  of  the  dead 
in  the  spirit  world,"  and  Mrs.  Tietjens,  ren- 
dering them  real  as  the  weather,  proves  the 
creative,  memory-searing  genius  hers  in  no 
slight  degree. 

The  master  of  the  shop  is  a  pious  man, 
in  good  odor  with  the  priests. 

He  is  old  and  honorable,  and  his  white 
moustache  droops  below  his  chin. 

Mencius,  I  think,  looked  so. 


The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Called   103 

The  shop  behind  him  is  a  mimic  world, 
a  world  of  pieties  and  shams  —  the 
valley  of  remembrance  —  the  dwell- 
ing place  of  the  unquiet  dead. 

Here  on  his  shelves  are  ranged  the 
splendor  and  the  panoply  of  life,  silk 
in  smooth  gleaming  rolls,  silver  in  in- 
gots, carving  and  embroidery  and 
jade,  a  scarlet  bearer-chair,  a  pipe  for 
opium 

Whatever  life  has  need  of,  it  is  here, 

And  it  is  for  the  dead. 

Whatever  life  has  need  of,  it  is  here. 

Yet  it  is  here  in  sham,  in  effigy,  in  tor- 
tured compromise. 

The  dead  have  need  of  silk.  Yet  silk  is 
dear,  and  there  are  living  backs  to 
clothe. 

The  rolls  are  paper Do  not 

look  too  close. 

The  dead,  I  think,  will  understand. 

The  carvings,  too,  the  bearer-chair,  the 
jade  —  yes,  they  are  paper;  and  the 
shining  ingots,  they  are  tinsel. 


104  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Yet  they  are  made  with  skill  and  loving 
care! 

And  if  the  priest  knows  —  surely  he  must 
know !  —  when  they  are  burned  they'll 
serve  the  dead  as  well  as  verities. 

So  living  mouths  can  feed. 

The  master  of  the  shop  is  a  pious  man. 

He  has  attained  much  honor  and  his 

white   moustache   droops   below  his 

chin. 
"  Such  an  one,"  he  says,  "  I  burned  for 

my  own  father.    And  such  an  one  my 

son  will  burn  for  me. 
For  I  am  old,  and  half  my  life  already 

dwells  among  the  dead." 

And,  as  he  speaks,  behind  him  in  the 
shop  I  feel  the  presence  of  a  hovering 
host,  the  myriads  of  the  immortal 
dead,  the  rulers  of  the  spirit  in  this 
land.  .  -  .  .  . 

For  in  this  kingdom  of  the  dead  they 
who  are  living  cling  with  fevered 
hands  to  the  torn  fringes  of  the 


The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Called   105 

mighty    past.     And    if    they    fail    a 
little,  compromise 

The  dead,  I  think,  will  understand. 

Here,  it  will  be  seen,  is  an  interesting  and 
ultra-individual  variation  of  the  newer  poetry 
manner,  "at  once  realistic  and  romantic," 
a  variation  of  "polyphonic  prose"  alike 
novel,  dignified,  and  comprising  at  once  the 
best  and  most  specialized  characteristics  of 
that  manner.  Mrs.  Tietjens  is  another  of 
the  poetic  artists  who  employ  words  much 
as  their  fellows  of  the  brush  employ  paint. 

"New"  poets  of  varied  but  worth  while 
tenor  might  be  cited  almost  without  number. 
Few  writers  of  any  power,  it  would  seem, 
but  have  written  at  least  one  or  two  free 
verse  poems,  finding  therein,  it  may  be,  new 
channel  for  the  outpouring  of  poetic  fervor 
not  readily  to  be  restrained  or  restricted,  new 
outlet  for  the  unnamed  urge  and  surge  that, 
yeast-wise,  affects  contemporary  humanity. 
Many  of  these  poems  deserve  to  live,  and 
will  live,  long  after  the  "new  poetry"  excite- 


106  How  to  Read  Poetry 

ment  has  attained  just  level,  lost  the  meretri- 
cious notoriety  of  faddism,  and  become  a 
recognized  and  accepted  member  of  poetic 
society.  Many  of  the  writers  in  all  prob- 
ability gradually  will  assume  less  prominent 
but  more  assured  poetic  position  as  their 
poetic  uncertainties  are  left  behind  by  the 
calm  maturing  of  the  new  poetic  thought. 

The, work  of  Miss  Lowell,  in  this  cinematic 
glimpse  to  be  fairly  if  not  adequately  repre- 
sented by  "The  Cornucopia  of  Red  and 
Green  Comfits,"  partakes  of  this  nature. 
Never  a  victim  of  the  wildest  poetic  insur- 
gency, the  Lowell  poetry  already  has  attained 
increasing  strength,  dignity,  and  sweetness, 
year  by  year  is  becoming  less  bizarre,  more 
chastened,  of  richer,  more  spiritual  flavor. 
Another  decade,  two  at  most,  and  its  arrest- 
ing "  newness "  almost  inevitably  will  have 
been  forgotten,  while  its  sterling  value  to  the 
cause  of  poetic  freedom  and  flexibility  must 
remain. 

So,  too,  albeit  differently,  with  the  work  of 
that  faithful  and  devoted  acolyte  at  the  altar 
of  poetic  beauty,  Harriet  Monroe. 


The  " 'New"  Poetry,  So-Called    107 

Miss  Monroe,  because  of  the  cordial  hos- 
pitality of  her  "  Magazine  of  Verse,"  "Poet- 
ry" to  the  "new"  poets,  in  popular  regard 
quite  naturally  is  ranged  with  the  "new" 
poets.  But  Miss  Monroe,  whose  magazine 
also  has  been  generously  hospitable  to  poetry 
of  more  standard  order,  herself  is  limited  to 
no  particular  school  or  movement.  She  has 
produced  good  poems  of  free,  elastic  nature, 
but  many  of  her  best  and  best  known  num- 
bers belong  in  more  formal  category.  The 
"  Columbian  Ode "  written  for  the  Colum- 
bian Exposition  not  only  antedated  the  unew 
movement"  by  some  years  but  stands  far  re- 
moved from  anything  like  "new  poetry" 
ideals  and  manner.  One  of  the  most  widely 
loved  Monroe  poems,  the  "Love  Song" 
that  so  well  withstands  careful  criticism  and 
analysis,  is  of  almost  geometric  perfection 
and  finish.  This  poem,  as  proving  the  point 
that  few  real  artists  are  restricted  to  any  one 
mood  or  manner,  shall  be  here  enjoyed. 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well 
To  give  it  to  thee  like  a  flower, 


108  How  to  Read  Poetry 

So  it  may  pleasure  thee  to  dwell 

Deep  in  its  perfume  but  an  hour. 
I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well. 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well 
To  sing  it  note  by  note  away, 

So  to  thy  soul  the  song  may  tell 
The  beauty  of  the  desolate  day. 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well. 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well 
To  cast  it  like  a  cloak  on  thine, 

Against  the  storms  that  sound  and  swell 
Between  thy  lonely  heart  and  mine. 

I  love  my  life,  but  not  too  well. 

New  and  enchanting  and  infinitely  varied 
poetic  voices,  to  carry  the  thought  a  little  fur- 
ther, continually  arise  and  will  arise  among 
the  English-speaking  people.  The  tale  of 
today  must  be  sadly  incomplete  tomorrow, 
as  that  of  yesterday  lacks  much  at  the  pres- 
ent moment.  For  this  reason  alone,  if  for 
no  other,  anything  approaching  a  full  cata- 
logue of  study  of  contemporary  poets,  u  new  " 


The  "New"  Poetry,  So-Galled   109 

or  classic  would  be  as  absurd  as  impossible. 
But  here  is  no  distant  attempt  at  such  study  — 
merely  a  signpost  modestly  showing  a  way  to 
the  poetic  kingdom  of  wondrous  glory  and 
"  many  mansions,"  suggesting  as  simplest  sub- 
stitutes for  the  long-lost  magic  carpet,  certain 
well-known  and  well-mannered  guides. 


THE  SOLDIER 

If  I  should  die,  think  only  this  of  me: 
That  there's  some  corner  of  a  foreign 

field 

That  is  forever  England.  There  shall  be 
In  that  rich  earth  a  richer  dust  con- 
cealed; 
A  dust  whom  England  bore,   shaped, 

made  aware, 
Gave,  once,  her  flowers  to  love,  her 

ways  to  roam, 
A  body  of  England's,  breathing  English 

air, 
Washed  by  the  rivers,  blest  by  suns 

of  home. 
And   think,    this    heart,    all    evil    shed 

away, 

A  pulse  in  the  eternal  mind,  no  less 
Gives    somewhere    back    the    thoughts 

by  England  given; 

Her  sights  and  sounds;   dreams  happy 
as  her  day; 

in 


iia  How  to  Read  Poetry 

And   laughter,   learnt   of   friends;   and 

gentleness, 

In  hearts  at  peace,  under  an  English 
heaven. 

—  RUPERT  BROOKE. 


CHAPTER  V 

FORMAL    POETRY:      THE    SONNET,    THE    ODE, 
THE    ELEGY,    AND    BLANK   VERSE 

THE  appeal  of  strictly  formal  poetry 
popularly  is  supposed  to  be  extremely 
limited.  A  tradition  obtains  to  the  effect  that 
formal  poetry  —  blank  verse,  the  sonnet, 
odes,  epics,  elegies,  religious  poems  —  are 
read  only  by  the  poetically  elect,  the  academic, 
the  student,  the  "  highbrow.''  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  exact  reverse  frequently  is  true. 

The  Bible,  containing  some  of  the  finest 
blank  verse  and  unrhymed  poetry  in  existence, 
through  long  ages  has  been  the  solace  of 
many  unlettered  readers  who  frankly  have 
loved  it  as  much  for  its  manner  as  substance. 
The  twenty-third  Psalm,  the  one  hundred  and 
third  Psalm,  the  u  charity  chapter"  of  Corin- 
thians—  aye,  even  in  the  weakened  version  of 
certain  modernized  renderings — the  "Song 
of  Solomon,"  various  portions  of  Job  and 
Isaiah,  these  are  among  the  numerous  bib- 

"3 


1 14  How  to  Read  Poetry 

lical  extracts  that,  comprising  poetry  intrin- 
sically good  and  moving,  always  have  been 
dear  to  the  common  heart.  Let  us  quote,  for 
supporting  illustration,  the  passage  from  the 
"Song"  exquisite  as  universally  beloved. 

Rise  up,  my  love,  my  fair  one,  and  come 
away. 

For,  lo,  the  winter  is  past,  the  rain  is 
over  and  gone ; 

The  flowers  appear* on  the  earth;  the 
time  of  the  singing  of  birds  is  come, 
and  the  voice  of  the  turtle  is  heard  in 
our  land; 

The  fig  tree  putteth  forth  her  green  figs, 
and  the  vines  with  the  tender  grape 
give  a  good  smell.  Arise,  my  love, 
my  fair  one,  and  come  away. 

Think,  again,  of  that  equally  cherished  and 
uplifting  passage  from  Ecclesiastes : 

In  the  day  when  the  keepers  of  the  house 
shall  tremble,  and  the  strong  men 
shall  bow  themselves,  and  the  grind- 


Formal  Poetry  1 1 5 

ers  cease  because  they  are  few,  and 
those  that  look  out  of  the  windows 
be  darkened, 

And  the  doors  shall  be  shut  in  the  streets, 
when  the  sound  of  the  grinding  is 
low,  and  he  shall  rise  up  at  the  voice 
of  the  bird,  and  all  the  daughters  of 
musick  shall  be  brought  low; 

Also  when  they  shall  be  afraid  of  that 
which  is  high,  and  fears  shall  be  in 
the  way,  and  the  almond  tree  shall 
flourish,  and  the  grasshopper  shall  be 
a  burden,  and  desire  shall  fail:  be- 
cause man  goeth  to  his  long  home,  and 
the  mourners  go  about  the  streets : 

Or  ever  the  silver  cord  be  loosed,  or  the 
golden  bowl  be  broken,  or  the  pitcher 
be  broken  at  the  fountain,  or  the 
wheel  broken  at  the  cistern. 

Then  shall  the  dust  return  to  the  earth 
as  it  was :  and  the  spirit  shall  return 
unto  God  who  gave  it. 

What  could  keep  such  poetry  from  the  love 
of  all  those,  learned  or  unlearned,  who  are 


/ 

•n 

V 


1 16  How  to  Read  Poetry 

awake  to  the  beauty  of  high  thought,  of  per- 
fect imagery,  of  the  prevailing  needs  and 
impulses  of  human  nature?  Call  it  poetry, 
call  it  scripture,  call  it  what  you  will  or  nothing 
at  all,  it  still  will  be  held  dear  for  its  calm 
and  classic  beauty,  for  the  perfect  thing  it  is. 
And  that  other  splendid  and  almost  equally 
appreciated  biblical  poem,  the  prayer  which 
King  Solomon  made  when  he  "  kneeled  down 
upon  hisv  knees  before  all  the  congregation  of 
Israel,  and  spread  forth  his  hands  toward 
heaven."  But  a  few  verses  must  here  repre- 
sent that  which  deserves  to  be  included  in 
poetic  anthologies  of  many  kinds. 

If  thy  people  go  out  to  war  against  their 
enemies  by  the  way  that  thou  shalt 
send  them,  and  they  pray  unto  thee 
toward  this  city  which  thou  hast 
chosen,  and  the  house  which  I  have 
built  for  thy  name ; 

Then  hear  thou  from  the  heavens  their 
prayer  and  their  supplication,  and 
maintain  their  cause. 

If  they  sin  against  thee,  (for  there  is  no 


Formal  Poetry  1 17 

man  which  sinneth  not,)  and  thou  be 
angry  with  them,  and  deliver  them 
over  before  their  enemies,  and  they 
carry  them  away  captives  unto  a  land 
far  off  or  near; 

Yet  if  they  ....  return  to  thee 
with  all  their  heart  and  with  all  their 
soul  in  the  land  of  their  captivity, 
whither  they  have  carried  them  cap- 
tives, and  pray  toward  their  land, 
which  thou  gavest  unto  their  fathers, 
and  toward  the  city  which  thou  hast 
chosen,  and  toward  the  house  which  I 
have  built  for  thy  name : 

Then  hear  thou  from  the  heavens,  even 
from  thy  dwelling  place,  their  prayer 
and  their  supplications,  and  maintain 
their  cause,  and  forgive  thy  people 
which  have  sinned  against  thee. 

In  passages  such  as  this  may  be  found  at 
once  the  reason  and  the  justification  of  formal 
poetry.  It  is  the  poetry  of  high  moods,  of 
exalted  thoughts  and  emotion.  The  verses 
quoted,  always  majestic  and  impelling,  would 


1 1 8  How  to  Read  Poetry 

be  out  of  place  in  a  gay  gathering,  out  of 
harmony  upon  such  occasions  as  well  might 
be  graced  by  the  joyous  lyric  from  the  "  Song 
of  Solomon."  So,  in  like  manner,  might  any 
light  or  lively  specimen  of  poetry,  of  what- 
ever variety,  lack  appeal  in  life's  solemn 
moments  without  in  slightest  degree  losing 
specific  appeal  or  virtue.  The  strongest 
lover  of  poetry,  as  of  music  or  art  or  human- 
ity or'  nature,  wants  not  always  the  lighter, 
more  gladsome  moods  and  aspects  of  his 
charmer.  Many  a  rare  spirit,  many  a 
temperament  largely  compound  of  tender- 
ness and  gaiety,  at  times  might  turn  readily 
from  the  lilting  melody  of  uPippa  Passes" 
to  the  stately  measure,  the  spiritual  grandeur 
of  Bryant's  "  Forest  Hymn"  or  "Thana- 
topsis."  Note  the  simple  majesty,  the  im- 
pressive application  of  these  lines  from  the 
latter. 

To  him  who  in  the  love  of  Nature  holds 
Communion  with  her  visible  forms,  she 

speaks 
A  various  language ;  for  his  gayer  hours 


Formal  Poetry  119 

She  has  a  voice  of  gladness,  and  a  smile 
And  eloquence  of  beauty,  and  she  glides 
Into  his  darker  musings,  with  a  mild 
And  healing  sympathy,  that  steals  away 
Their  sharpness,  ere  he  is  aware.  When 

thoughts 
Of   the   last  bitter   hour   come   like    a 

blight 

Over  thy  spirit,  and  sad  images 
Of  the  stern  agony,   and  shroud,   and 

pall, 

And  breathless  darkness,  and  the  nar- 
row house, 
Make  thee  to  shudder  and  grow  sick  at 

heart; — 
Go  forth,  under  the  open  sky,  and  list 

To  Nature's  teachings 

•  •  •  •  • 

So  shalt  thou  rest,  and  what  if  thou  with- 
draw 

In  silence  from  the  living,  and  no  friend 
Take  note  of  thy  departure?    All  that 

breathe 

Will  share  thy  destiny.     The  gay  will 
laugh 


I2O  How  to  Read  Poetry 

When  thou  art  gone,  the  solemn  brood 

of  care 
Plod  on,  and  each  one  as  before  will 

chase 
His  favorite  phantom;  yet  all  these  shall 

leave 
Their  mirth  and  their  employments,  and 

shall  come 
An4  make  their  bed  with  thee.    As  the 

long  train 

Of  ages  glides  away,  the  sons  of  men  — 
The  youth  in  life's  fresh  spring,  and  he 

who  goes 
In  the  full  strength  of  years,  matron, 

and  maid, 

The    speechless    babe,    and    the    gray- 
headed  man  — 
Shall  one  by  one  be  gathered   to  thy 

side, 
By  those,  who  in  their  turn  shall  follow 

them. 

•  •  •  •  • 

So  live,  that  when  thy  summons  comes  to 

join 
The  innumerable  caravan,  which  moves 


Formal  Poetry  1 2 1 

To  that  mysterious  realm,  where  each 

shall  take 

His  chamber  in  the  silent  halls  of  death, 
Thou  go  not,  like  the  quarry-slave  at 

night, 
Scourged  to  his  dungeon,  but  sustained 

and  soothed 
By  an  unfaltering  trust,  approach  thy 

grave 
Like  one  who  wraps  the  drapery  of  his 

couch 
About  him,  and  lies  down  to  pleasant 

dreams. 

That  last  stanza  perhaps  has  comforted, 
soothed,  stirred,  and  sustained  more  troubled 
souls  than  even  Henley's  trumpet  call  "  Invic- 
tus"  or  the  highly  contemporary  effusions  of 
Edmund  Vance  Cooke  or  Herbert  Kaufman. 
But  not  to  every  taste  or  occasion  will  it 
prove  most  pleasing.  Due  enjoyment  of 
poetry,  as  previously  suggested,  depends  no 
little  upon  the  reader's  state  of  soul  and 
mind. 

Those   popular    favorites,    Wordsworth's 


122  How  to  Read  Poetry 

:<  I  Wandered  Lonely  as  a  Cloud,"  Newman's 
uLead,  Kindly  Light,"  and  Wolfe's  "  Burial 
of  Sir  John  Moore,"  with  countless  diversely 
touching  poetic  brethren,  depend,  for  highest 
appreciation,  on  the  spiritual  or  intellectual 
reactions  of  the  reader,  as  do,  indeed,  hosts 
of  more  strictly  formal  poems.  The  fact  is 
that  formal  poetry  is  to  life  and  literature  in 
general  what  the  sonata  is  to  music  or  sculp- 
ture is  to  art. 

Formal  poetry,  to  particularize,  is  the 
poetry  of  unusual  or  specially  stressed  occa- 
sions. One  would  not  willingly  spend  entire 
days  listening  to  Beethoven  or  Handel  or 
Wagner,  yet  there  are  times  when  the  lesser 
musicians  fail  utterly  to  interpret  soul  condi- 
tions, emotional  attitudes,  and  strivings.  To 
live  in  a  sculpture  gallery  would  seem  to  the 
majority  exceedingly  oppressive,  but  who  has 
not  found  some  single  statue  or  group  of 
statuary  satisfying  in  the  extreme?  Thus  it 
is,  naturally  enough,  in  the  realms  of  verbal 
music  and  art. 

When  the  glad  spirit  dances  happily  along 
life's  highways  and  byways,  then  the  time 


Formal  Poetry  123 

for  jocund  songs  and  lightsome  lyrics.  When 
moods  are  tempestuous,  the  currents  of 
thought  or  emotion  too  strong  or  resistless 
for  the  bounding  shores  of  regular  meter, 
then  rhymeless  poetry,  free  verse,  has  its  sea- 
son of  delight  and  honor.  When  the  rhythm 
of  life  is  dainty,  staccato,  tripping,  the  puls- 
ing chante  royale,  the  delicate  triolet,  the 
quick-witted  vers  de  societe  may  be  sure  of 
warm  welcome.  When  death,  dramatic  love, 
glory  or  other  superlative  passion  absorbs  the 
attention,  then  the  formal,  the  classic  poetry 
of  greatness  is  enjoyed  and  understood.  To 
each,  in  poetry  as  in  all  things,  its  own  pure 
moment  and  mood. 

The  sonnet,  for  example,  has  been  greatly 
wronged  by  too  general  misapprehension. 
Younglings  naturally  loving  poetry  are 
warned  away  from  the  sonnet  as  from  some- 
thing stiff  and  artificial.  Men  and  women 
who  would  find  in  it  no  difficulty  if  unpreju- 
diced, fight  shy  of  the  sonnet  because  it  has 
been  described  to  them  as  difficult  of  compre- 
hension or  construction.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  sonnet  is  no  more  artificial  or  rigid  in  con- 


124  How  to  Read  Poetry 

struction  than  any  other  standard  verse  form 
if  obediently  followed.  And  the  chiseled 
elegance  of  the  sonnet  has  a  high,  profound 
beauty  like  that  of  a  marble  bust. 

"A  Shakespeare  sonnet"  sounds,  perhaps, 
decidedly  formal.  The  poetry  reading  be- 
ginner would  not,  it  may  be,  feel  especially 
drawn  toward  it.  And  yet  —  read 

Love  is  not  love 

Which  alters  when  it  alteration  finds, 

or  this,  the  eighteenth  of  those  one  hundred 
and  fifty-four  Shakespeare  sonnets,  those  in- 
surpassable  love  poems,  that  attest  the 
"cold"  sonnet's  possible  amatory  warmth 
and  worth. 

Shall  I  compare  thee  to  a  Summer's  day? 

Thou  art  more  lovely  and  more  tem- 
perate : 

Rough  winds  do  shake  the  darling  buds 
of  May, 

And  Summer's  lease  hath  all  too  short 
a  date: 

Sometime  too  hot  the  eye  of  heaven 
shines, 


Formal  Poetry  125 

And    often    is    his    gold    complexion 

dimmed; 

And  every  fair  from  fair  sometime  de- 
clines, 
By  chance  or  nature's  changing  course 

untrimmed: 

But  thy  eternal  Summer  shall  not  fade 
Nor  lose  possession  of  that  fair  thou 

owest; 
Nor  shall  Death  brag  thou  wanderest  in 

his  shade, 
When  in  eternal  lines  to  time  thou  grow- 

est: 
So  long  as  men  can  breathe,  or  eyes  can 

see, 
So  long  lives  this,  and  this  gives  life  to 

thee. 

Or  glance,  for  ripe  expression  of  sonneted 
emotion  of  other,  later  order,  over  this  jewel 
from  Olive  Tilford  Dargan's  tenderly  tragic 
"  Sonnets  for  One  Drowned  at  Sea." 

Today  I  went  among  the  mountain  folk 
To  hear  the  gentle  talk  most  dear  to  me. 


ia6  How  to  Read  Poetry 

I  saw  slow  tears,  and  tenderness  that 

woke 
From  sternest  bed  to  light  a  lamp  for 

thee. 
And  "  Is  it  true?  "  hope  asked  and  asked 

again, 

And  "  It  is  true,"  was  all  that  I  could  say, 
And  pride  rose  over  love  to  hide  gray 

pain 
As  eyes  tears  might  ungrace  were  turned 

away. 

So  much  they  loved  thee  I  was  half  de- 
coyed 
By  human  warmth,  to  feel  thee  near,  but 

when 

I  put  my  hand  out  all  the  earth  was  void, 
And  vanished  even  these  near-weeping 

men. 
Thus  each  new  time  I  find  that  thou  art 

gone, 
Anew  do  I  survive  the  world  alone. 

The  realms  of  poetry,  new  and  old  alike, 
are  rich  in  sonnets  giving  the  melodic  lie  to 
all  the  old,  depopularizing  libels.  It  is  but 


Formal  Poetry  127 

necessary  to  read  with  an  open  mind  to  know 
this.  The  sonnet  was  a  great  favorite  with 
those  "great  lovers,"  that  "nest  of  singing 
birds,"  the  Elizabethan  poets.  More  than 
two  thousand  sonnets  were  written  within  the 
last  ten  years  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Ed- 
mund Spenser  in  a  single  year  composed 
fifty-eight  sonnets  celebrating  his  erotic  ex- 
periences and  emotions.  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
wrote  many  besides  that  possibly  best  and 
best  known  of  his  productions,  "With  how 
sad  steps,  O  Moon,  thou  climb'st  the  Skies ! " 
All  down  and  along  the  poetic  ages  the  sonnet 
has  been  treasured  by  those  desiring  to  lend 
high  or  fine  thought  fitting  poetic  expression. 
Could  better  frame  be  provided  chivalric  loy- 
alty than  Rupert  Brooke's  "The  Sqldier"— 

"  If  I  should  die,  think  only  this  of  me " 

or  John  McCrae's  "  In  Flanders'  Fields,"  the 
recent  swan  songs  and  war  sonnets  that  ren- 
dered their  writers  instantaneously,  undyingly 
famous.  The  testimony  of  innumerable  son- 
nets not  only  of  carven  correctness  but  widely 
beloved  easily  might  be  up-piled,  arrayed. 
The  elegy,  again,  frequently  has  been  ac- 


ia8  How  to  Read  Poetry 

cused  of  being  too  abstract,  too  remote  to  be 
loved  or  "  understanded  of  the  common  peo- 
ple." Why?  Once  more  because  of  the 
traditional  misbelief  that  it  is  ultra  conven- 
tional, cold,  set  far  apart  from  ordinary  hu- 
man thoughts  and  feelings  and  issues.  Well 
might  be  offered,  in  opposing  argument,  these 
lines  from  Milton's  "Lycidas,"  noblest  of 
English  elegiac  works : 

Yet  once  more,  O  ye  Laurels,  and  once 

more 

Ye  Myrtles  brown,  with  Ivy  never  sere, 
I  come  to  pluck  your  Berries  harsh  and 

crude, 

And  with  forced  fingers  rude, 
Shatter  your  leaves  before  the  mellow- 
ing year. 

Bitter  constraint,  and  sad  occasion  dear, 
Compel  me  to  disturb  your  season  due : 
For  Lycidas  is  dead,  dead  in  his  prime, 
Young  Lycidas,   and  hath  not  left  his 

peer: 

Who  would  not  sing  for  Lycidas?  he 
knew 


Formal  Poetry  129 

Himself  to   sing,    and  build  the   lofty 

rhyme. 
He    must    not    float   upon    his    watery 

bier 
Unwept,    and   welter   to    the    parching 

wind, 
Without  the  meed  of  some  melodious 

tear. 


Now  thou  art  gone,  and  never  must  re- 
turn! 

Thee,  Shepherd,  thee  the  Woods,  and 
desert  Caves, 

With  wild  Thyme  and  the  gadding  Vine 
o'ergrown, 

And  all  their  echoes  mourn. 

The  Willows  and  the  Hazel  Copses 
green, 

Shall  now  no  more  be  seen, 

Fanning  their  joyous  Leaves  to  thy  soft 
lays. 

As  killing  as  the  Canker  to  the  Rose, 

Or  Taint-worm  to  the  weanling  Herds 
that  graze, 


130  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Or   Frost  to  Flowers,   that  their   gay 

wardrobe  wear, 

When  first  the  White-thorn  blows ; 
Such,  Lycidas,  thy  loss  to  Shepherd's 

ear. 

What  is  found  here  but  timeless,  world- 
wide feeling,  natural  as  sympathetic,  fittingly 
worded  and  but  fitly  tinged  and  flavored  by 
the  special  thought  and  mode  of  Milton's 
time?  What,  in  "Adonais,"  Shelley's  lovely 
lament  and  elegy  for  Keats,  but  the  universal, 
world-old  love  of  comrade  for  comrade,  all 
the  deeper  and  richer  for  the  wonderful 
poetic  setting  of  expression  and  verbal  frame  ? 

I  weep  for  Adonais  —  he  is  dead! 
Oh,  weep  for  Adonais !  though  our 

tears 
Thaw  not  the  frost  which  binds  so 

dear  a  head! 
And  thou,  sad  Hour,  selected  from  all 

years 
To  mourn  our  loss,  rouse  thy  obscure 

compeers, 


Formal  Poetry  131 

And  teach  them  thine  own  sorrow. 
Say:     " With  me 

Died  Adonais ;  till  the  Future  dares 
Forget  the  Past,  his  fate  and  fame 

shall  be 
An  echo  and  a  light  unto  eternity!  " 


Oh,  weep  for  Adonais!  —  the  quick 

Dreams, 
The     passion-winged     ministers     of 

thought, 
Who  were  his  flocks,  whom  near  the 

living  streams 
Of  his  young  spirit  he  fed,  and  whom 

he  taught 
The  love  which  was  its  music,  wander 

not — 
Wander  no  more,  from  kindling  brain 

to  brain, 
But  droop  there,  whence  they  sprung; 

and  mourn  their  lot 
Round  the  cold  heart,  where,  after 

their  sweet  pain, 


132  How  to  Read  Poetry 

They  ne'er  will  gather  strength,  or  find 
a  home  again. 

He  lives,  he  wakes — 'tis   Death  is 

dead,  not  he; 
Mourn     not     for     Adonais  —  Thou 

young  Dawn, 
Turn  all  thy  dew  to  splendor,  for  from 

thee 

The  spirit  thou  lamentest  is  not  gone ; 
Ye  caverns  and  ye  forests,  cease  to 

moan! 
Cease,  ye  faint  flowers  and  fountains, 

and  thou  Air, 
Which  like  a  mourning  veil  thy  scarf 

hadst  thrown 
O'er  the  abandoned  Earth,  now  leave 

it  bare 
Even  to  the  joyous  stars  which  smile  on 

its  despair! 

He  is  made  one  with  Nature :  there  is 

heard 
His  voice  in  all  her  music,  from  the 

moan 


Formal  Poetry  133 

Of  thunder,  to  the  song  of  night's 
sweet  bird; 

He  is  a  presence  to  be  felt  and  known 

In  darkness  and  in  light,  from  herb 
and  stone, 

Spreading  itself  where'er  that  Power 
may  move 

Which  has  withdrawn  his  being  to  its 
own; 

Which  wields  the  world  with  never- 
wearied  love, 

Sustains  it  from  beneath,  and  kindles  it 
above. 

He  is  a  portion  of  the  loveliness 

Which  once  he  made  more  lovely;  he 
doth  bear 

His  part,  while  the  one  Spirit's  plas- 
tic stress 

Sweeps  through  the  dull  dense  world, 
compelling  there, 

All  new  successions  to  the  forms  they 
wear; 

Torturing  the  unwilling  dross  that 
checks  its  flight 


134  How  to  Read  Poetry 

To  his  own  likeness,  as  each  mass  may 

bear, 
And  bursting  in   its  beauty   and   its 

might 
From  trees  and  beasts  and  men  into  the 

Heaven's  light. 

Who,  with  a  sweet  and  early-dead  friend 
and  beloved  in  memory,  spiritual  vision, 
would  not  thrill  responsive  to  the  mighty 
music  of  the  few  quoted  "Adonais"  stanzas? 
The  popular  message  of  the  poem  is  in  no 
whit  lessened  because  of  its  majestic  rhythms, 
its  harmonious  rhymes,  its  sweeping,  splen- 
did swing.  Gray's  "Elegy,"  with  its  sweet 
succession  of  fine  verses  strung  like  rare 
pearls  on  a  delicate  thought-thread;  Tenny- 
son's "  In  Memoriam,"  with  its  unforgettable 
expression  and  strong  if  sentimental  treat- 
ment of  a  tenderly  hallowed  subject;  Steven- 
son's self-directed  "  Requiem,"  these  are  too 
well  known,  too  well  loved  to  need  merest 
hint  of  quotation.  Richard  le  Gallienne's 
"  What  of  the  Darkness  ?  "  dedicated  to  "  the 
happy  dead  people,"  strikes  a  similar  note. 


Formal  Poetry 


What  of  the  darkness?    Is  it  very  fair? 
Are  there  great  calms?  and  find  we  si- 

lence there? 

Like  soft-shut  lilies,  all  your  faces  glow 
With  some  strange  peace  our  faces  never 

know, 
With  some  strange  faith  our  faces  never 

dare  — 
Dwells  it  in  Darkness?     Do  you  find  it 

there? 

Is  it  a  Bosom  where  tired  heads  may  lie  ? 
Is  it  a  Mouth  to  kiss  our  weeping  dry? 
Is  it  a  Hand  to  still  the  pulse's  leap? 
Is  it  a  Voice  that  holds  the  runes  of 

sleep? 
Day  shows  us  not  such  comfort  any- 

where — 
Dwells  it  in  Darkness?    Do  you  find  it 

there? 

Out  of  the   Day's   deceiving  light  we 

call  — 
Day  that  shows  man  so  great,  and  God 

so  small, 


136  How  to  Read  Poetry 

That  hides  the  stars,  and  magnifies  the 

grass  — 

O  is  the  Darkness  too  a  lying  glass ! 
Or  undistracted,  do  you  find  truth  there  ? 
What  of  the  Darkness?    Is  it  very  fair? 

Is  not  the  Eternal  Question  here  asked  so 
beautifully  that  the  alarming  elegiac  feature 
of  the  poem  is  forgotten?  Practically  every 
human  being,  at  some  time,  upon  some  occa- 
sion, must  know  how  to  read,  to  enjoy  such 
setting.  Even  more  modern,  yet  no  less  age- 
less, is  the  note  of  "A  Club-Man's  Requiem, " 
Martha  Gilbert  Dickinson  Bianchi's  highly 
individual  expression  of  a  widely  shared 
thought. 

Warren  has  gone;  and  we  who  loved  him 
best 

Can't  think  of  him  as 

"  entered  into  rest." 

But  he  has   gone;  has  left  the  morning 
street, 

The  clubs  no  longer  echo  to  his  feet, 
Nor  shall  we  see  him  lift  his  yellow  wine 


Formal  Poetry  137 

To  pledge  the  random  host  —  the  purple 
vine. 

At  doors  of  other  men  his  horses  wait, 
His  whining  dogs  scent  false  their  master's 
fate; 

His  chafing  yacht  at  harbor  mooring  lies; 
"  Owner  ashore,"  her  idle  pennant  flies. 
Warren  has  gone  — 

Forsook  the  jovial  ways 
Of  winter  nights  —  turned  from  his  well- 
loved  plays, 

The  dreams  and  schemes  and  deeds  of  busy 
brain, 

And  pensive  habitations  built  in  Spain. 
Gone,  with  his  ruddy  hopes  !    And  we  who 
knew  him  best 
Can't  think  of  him  as  "  entered  into  rest." 

So  when  the  talk  dies  out  or  lights  burn 
dim 

We  often  ponder  what  is  keeping  him  — 
What  destiny  that  all-subduing  will, 
That  golden  wit,  that  love  of  life,  fulfil? 
For  we  who  silent  smoke,  who  loved  him 
best, 
Can't  fancy  Warren  "  entered  into  rest." 


138  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Closely  akin  to  elegiac  poetry,  equally  mov- 
ing and  natural,  is  that  which  celebrates  the 
universal  dread  and  dislike  of  growing  old. 
Stoddard's  graceful  "The  Flight  of  Youth " 
already  has  been  quoted,  but  this  no  better 
expresses  the  feeling  of  average  humanity 
when  confronted  by  uthe  western  slope  "  or 
even  the  first  gray  hair  than  does  Longfel- 
low's "vMorituri  Salutamus,"  with  its  artistic 
and  comforting  suggestions  of  a  change  not 
entirely  sad. 

But  why,  you  ask  me,  should  this  tale 
be  told 

To  men  grown  old,  or  who  are  growing 
old? 

It  is  too  late  !    Ah,  nothing  is  too  late 

Till  the  tired  heart  shall  cease  to  palpi- 
tate. 

What  then?    Shall  we  sit  idly  down  and 

say 

The  night  hath  come ;  it  is  no  longer  day  ? 
The  night  hath  not  yet  come ;  we  are  not 

quite 


Formal  Poetry  139 

Cut  off  from  labor  by  the  failing  light; 
Something  remains  for  us  to  do  or  dare ; 
Even  the  oldest  tree  some   fruit  may 
bear. 


For  age  is  opportunity  no  less 

Than  youth   itself,   though  in  another 

dress, 

And  as  the  evening  twilight  fades  away 
The  sky  is  filled  with  stars,  invisible  by 

day. 

Formal  poetry?  Yes,  but  of  the  kind  that 
creeps  close  to  the  heartstrings.  Only  formal, 
like  the  commonplace  but  invaluable  greet- 
ing u  Good  morning !  "  in  custom  and  outline. 
Really  as  warmly  human,  as  full  of  sempi- 
ternal human  sympathy,  comprehension  and 
solace  as  Swinburne's  "Hertha"  or  Words- 
worth's "  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Immor- 
tality"—  parts  of  which,  incidentally,  shall 
here  serve  as  shining  example  of  another 
much  feared  and  maligned  poetic  form,  the 
ode. 


140  How  to  Read  Poetry 

There  was  a  time  when  meadow,  grove, 

and  stream, 
The  earth,  and  every  common  sight, 

To  me  did  seem 
Apparelled  in  celestial  light, 
The  glory  and  the  freshness  of  a  dream. 
It  is  not  now  as  it  hath  been  of  yore  — 
Turn  whereso'er  I  may, 

By  night  or  day, 

The  things  which  I  have  seen  I  now  can 
see  no  more. 

The  Rainbow  comes  and  goes, 

And  lovely  is  the  Rose; 

The  Moon  doth  with  delight 
Look   round  her  when  the   heavens   are 
bare; 

Waters  on  a  starry  night 

Are  beautiful  and  fair; 
The  sunshine  is  a  glorious  birth; 
But  yet  I  know,  where'er  I  go, 
That  there  hath  passed  away  a  glory 
from  the  earth. 


Formal  Poetry  141 

Our  birth  is  but  a  sleep  and  a  forgetting; 
The  Soul  that  rises  with  us,  our  life's 

Star, 
Hath  had  elsewhere  its  setting, 

And  cometh  from  afar: 
Not  in  entire  forgetfulness, 
And  not  in  utter  nakedness, 
But  trailing  clouds  of  glory  do  we  come 

From  God  who  is  our  home : 
Heaven  lies  about  us  in  our  infancy! 
Shades  of  the  prison-house  begin  to  close 

Upon  the  growing  Boy, 
But  he  beholds  the  light,  and  whence  it 

flows, 

He  sees  it  in  his  joy; 
The  Youth,  who  daily  farther  from  the 

East 

Must  travel,  still  is  Nature's  Priest, 
And  by  the  vision  splendid 
Is  on  his  way  attended; 
At  length  the  Man  perceives  it  die  away, 
And  fade  into  the  light  of  common  day. 


O  joy !  that  in  our  embers 


142  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Is  something  that  doth  live, 

That  nature  yet  remembers 

What  was  so  fugitive ! 
The  thought  of  our  past  years  in  me 

doth  breed 

Perpetual  benediction:  not  indeed 
For  that  which  is  most  worthy  to  be 

blest  — 

Delight  and  liberty,  the  simple  creed 
Of  Childhood,  whether  busy  or  at  rest, 
With  new-fledged  hope  still  fluttering  in 
his  breast  — 

Not  for  these  I  raise 

The  song  of  thanks  and  praise ; 
But  for  those  obstinate  questionings 

Of  sense  and  outward  things, 

Fallings  from  us,  vanishings ; 

Blank  misgivings  of  a  Creature 
Moving  about  in  worlds  not  realized, 
High  instincts  before  which  our  mortal 

Nature 
Did  tremble  like  a  guilty  thing  surprised  : 

But  for  those  first  affections, 

Those  shadowy  recollections, 
Which,  be  they  what  they  may, 


Formal  Poetry  143 

Are  yet  the   fountain-light  of  all   our 

day, 

Are  yet  a  master-light  of  all  our  seeing; 
Uphold  us,  cherish,  and  have  power 

to  make 
Our  noisy  years  seem  moments  in  the 

being 
Of  the  eternal  Silence :  truths  that  wake, 

To  perish  never; 

Which  neither  listlessness,  nor  mad  en- 
deavor, 

Nor  Man  nor  Boy, 
Nor  all  that  is  at  enmity  with  joy, 
Can  utterly  abolish  or  destroy! 

Hence,  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 

Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  Souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal 

sea 

Which  brought  us  hither, 
Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither 
And   see  the  children  sport  upon  the 

shore, 

And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  ever- 
more. 


144  How  to  Read  Poetry 

And  O,  ye  Fountains,  Meadows,  Hills, 
and  Groves, 

Forbode    not    any    severing    of    our 
loves ! 

Yet  in  my  heart  of  hearts  I  feel  your 
might; 

I  only  have  relinquished  one  delight 

To   live   beneath   your   more   habitual 
sway. 

I  love  the  Brooks,  which  down  their 
channels  fret, 

Even  more  than  when  I  tripped  lightly 
as  they: 

The  innocent  brightness  of  a  new-born 

Day 
Is  lovely  yet; 

The  Clouds  that  gather  round  the  set- 
ting sun 

Do  take  a  sober  coloring  from  an  eye 

That  hath  kept  watch  o'er  man's  mor- 
tality ; 

Another  race  hath  been,  and  other  palms 
are  won. 

Thanks  to  the  human  heart  by  which  we 
live, 


Formal  Poetry  145 

Thanks  to  its  tenderness,  its  joys,  and 

fears, 
To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can 

give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for 

tears. 

uAn  ode!  That  an  ode?"  one  can  hear 
certain  surprised  readers  exclaiming.  *  Why, 
I  thought  an  ode  was  something  dry  or 
deary  or  too  classical  for  ordinary,  every- 
day understanding  or  pleasure  !  And  that's 
delightfully  good  stuff." 

So  it  is,  dear  friend  and  fellow  sufferer 
from  too  common  poetic  misapprehension,  so 
it  is,  and  so  are  hosts  of  other  fine  "  formal" 
poems,  to  say  nothing  of  the  wide  range  of 
religious  poetry  that  need  only  here  be  sug^ 
gested,  and  of  classic  translations,  ancient 
and  modern,  that  need  but  to  be  known  to  be 
enjoyed. 

Many  a  supposedly  languid  poetry  student, 
induced  to  read  poetry  rightly,  beginning  in 
the  right  place,  would  find  him  or  herself  in 
the  position  of  the  Moliere  character  who 


146  How  to  Read  Poetry 

had  talked  prose  all  his  life  without  knowing 
it.  "Good  stuff  "  and  good  reading — ujust 
reading"  as  the  astonished  Morley  critic  re- 
marked in  an  earlier  chapter  —  abounds  in 
poetry  that,  because  of  its  hypothetically  dif- 
ficult character,  comparatively  seldom  gets 
beyond  the  task-work  of  the  high  school 
senior  or  college  freshman  "specializing  in 
English  literature." 

So  read,  it  too  often  takes  color,  chameleon- 
like,  from  its  surroundings  and  is  mentally 
catalogued  with  the  unhappy  "skip"  books 
of  our  childhood.  Read  as  it  might  and 
should  be,  formal  poetry  would  forge  impor- 
tant links  in  the  pleasure  armor  fortifying 
every  normal  human's  soul. 


SPRING  NIGHT 

The  park  is  filled  with  night  and  fog, 
The  veils  are  drawn  about  the  world, 

The  drowsy  lights  along  the  paths 
Are  dim  and  pearled. 

Gold  and  gleaming  the  empty  streets, 
Gold  and  gleaming  the  misty  lake, 

The  mirrored  lights  like  sunken  swords, 
Glimmer  and  shake. 

Oh,  is  it  not  enough  to  be 
Here  with  this  beauty  over  me? 
My  throat  should  ache  with  praise,  and  I 
Should  kneel  in  joy  beneath  the  sky. 
Oh,  beauty,  are  you  not  enough? 
Why  am  I  crying  after  love 
With  youth,  a  singing  voice  and  eyes 
To  take  earth's  wonder  with  surprise? 
Why  have  I  put  off  my  pride, 
Why  am  I  unsatisfied, 
I  for  whom  the  pensive  night 

147 


148  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Binds  her  cloudy  hair  with  light, 
I  for  whom  all  beauty  burns 
Like  incense  in  a  million  urns? 
Oh,  beauty,  are  you  not  enough? 
Why  am  I  crying  after  love? 

—  Sara  Teasdale, 


CHAPTER  VI 

NARRATIVE,  DRAMATIC,  AND  DESCRIPTIVE 
POETRY 

NARRATIVE  poetry,  frequently  listed 
among  the  least  popular  of  its  breth- 
ren, really  is  one  of  the  most  popular  forms 
of  poetic  expression.  It  began  with  the  earli- 
est known  races  of  humanity;  it  will  continue 
while  humanity  inhabits  the  face  of  the  globe. 
Perennially  declared  dead,  the  narrative 
poem  as  perennially  arises  anew  and  re- 
freshed to  confound  its  unjust  judges.  From 
the  primitive  Anglo-Saxon  "scop,"  who 
originated  his  poetic  stories  and  songs  as  he 
delivered  them,  down  through  the  profes- 
sional or  amateur  gleeman  who  often  repeated 
the  story-poems  of  others,  the  ancient  min- 
strels, the  wandering  ballad  singers,  and  the 
medieval  troubadours  to  such  later  narrative 
poets  as  Moore,  Scott,  Byron,  Tennyson, 
Browning,  Longfellow,  Frost,  Noyes,  Mase- 
field,  Gibson,  Howells,  Lindsay,  and  Mas- 

149 


150  How  to  Read  Poetry 

ters,  the  course  of  narrative  poetry  may  be 
traced  straight  and  true. 

The  same  intent,  the  same  spirit,  more- 
over, has  informed  all  these  successive  dev- 
otees of  the  poetic  story.  Chaucer's  "  Can- 
terbury Tales  "  and  Masefield's  "  The  Widow 
in  the  Bye-Street,"  Meredith's  "Love  in  the 
Valley,"  Henry  B.  Fuller's  "Lines  Long  and 
Short,"  Howells'  "The  Daughter  of  the 
Storage,"  and  Tennyson's  "  Godiva "  all 
are  moved  by  the  same  springs,  follow  the 
same  well  recognized  if  not  always  clearly 
formulated  natural  and  poetic  laws. 

The  narrative  poem,  long  or  short,  archaic 
or  ultra-modern,  romantic  or  adventurous,  is 
eternally  beloved  of  the  people  because  it 
satisfies  two  instinctive  desires  or  tastes  — 
perhaps  needs  —  of  human  nature.  These 
are  story-hunger  and  harmonic  feeling.  The 
mind  is  pleased  by  the  narrative's  progres- 
sion, the  senses  stirred  or  soothed  by  cadences 
rhythmic  or  rhyming.  The  narrative  poem, 
also,  presents  a  concrete  theme  in  a  concrete 
way. 

And  just  as  human  fondness  always  has 


Narrative  Poetry  151 

crowned  the  narrative  poem,  so,  always,  the 
narrative  poem  caters  to  the  same  aspects 
and  instincts  of  general  human  nature.  The 
narrative  poem  of  the  present  day  is  pre- 
cisely the  same,  allowing  for  due  difference 
of  time,  customs,  conventions,  as  the  narra- 
tive poem  of  the  middle  ages.  This,  at  least 
in  part,  accounts  for  the  unchanging  popu- 
larity of  the  great  epics,  such  as  the  "Iliad" 
and  the  "  Odyssey,"  of  the  Scotch  ballads  out 
of  which  "  Marmion  "  and  "  The  Lady  of  the 
Lake"  grew  naturally,  of  "Hiawatha," 
"  The  Ancient  Mariner,"  and  "  Lalla  Rookh," 
of  "The  Idyls  of  the  King,"  and  the  Norse 
sagas,  of  the  Indian,  East  Indian,  and  oriental 
folk-tales  and  recitals,  of  all  the  semi-historic, 
semi-romantic  lyrics  and  legends  of  all  the 
human  kindred  and  races  and  tongues. 

Infants,  as  has  been  said  before,  delight 
in  rhyme,  especially  the  rhyme  that  shapes 
itself  into  a  story.  What  natural  child  pre- 
fers not  a  Mother  Goose  rhyme,  a  jingle,  to 
a  plain  prose  statement  of  fact? 

Infant  races,  as  also  has  been  said  before, 
delight  in  the  rhyming  story,  the  narrative 


152  How  to  Read  Poetry 

poem.  Witness  the  popularity  of  the  tribal 
singer,  the  oriental  story  teller,  the  minstrel 
in  all  ages  and  climes. 

Growing  and  fully  grown  infants  never 
quite  outgrow  the  love  for  the  rhyming  story, 
nor  do  growing  and  fully  grown  races  and 
nations.  War  poems  —  poems  of  war  heroes 
—  are  as  dear  to  the  heart  of  humanity  now 
as  during  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  the  period 
of  the  Norman  Conquest,  the  Viking  era  or 
those  far,  fair,  poetry-haloed  days  of  early 
Greece  and  Rome. 

Narrative  poems,  to  particularize  lightly, 
are  almost  as  varied  in  kind,  form,  and  nature 
as  prose  narratives,  or  as  human  nature. 
Briefly,  they  range  themselves  into  the  heroic 
or  romantic  poem  story  of  the  primitive  or 
Middle  Ages;  the  realistic  poem  story,  of 
blank  verse,  free  verse  or  rhyming  order, 
that,  under  different  titles  and  grades  of  ap- 
preciation, has  come  down  from  the  dawn- 
days  of  mankind's  beginning;  the  short  and 
simple  story-lyric;  and  the  episodic  poem 
story  or  poem  story  in  little,  in  miniature,  that 
is  as  typically  and  almost  solely  characteristic 


Narrative  Poetry  153 

of  America  as  the  episodic  prose  short  story 
so  dear  to  the  American  heart. 

Perhaps  the  best,  as  one  of  the  best  known, 
examples  of  this  variety  of  poem  is  Edwin 
Arlington  Robinson's  "  Richard  Cory,"  a 
psychological-dramatic  story  interpretation 
that  for  force,  vitality,  vivid  depiction  and 
nutshell  terseness  scarce  could  further  go. 

Mr.  Robinson  in  "Flammonde"  tells  an- 
other, longer  rhyming  story  that,  as  with 
:<  Richard  Cory,"  is  avidly  devoured  by  men 
and  women  wont,  as  a  rule,  to  assert  that 
"  poetry  makes  no  appeal  to  me. 

The  man  Flammonde,  from  God  knows 

where, 

With  firm  address  and  foreign  air  — 
With  news  of  nations  in  his  talk 
And  something  royal  in  his  walk — 
With  glint  of  iron  in  his  eyes, 
But  never  doubt,  nor  yet  surprise, 
Appeared,  and  stayed,  and  held  his  head 
As  one  by  kings  accredited 

until,  by  sheer  force  of  personality,  he  had 
transformed  a  tight  little  American  town 


154  How  to  Read  Poetry 

through  enlargement  of  its  vision.  Flam- 
monde  serves  as  hero  —  intensely  real  though 
always  with  that  strange,  haunting  sense  of 
the  remote  about  his  vivid  chronicle  —  of  an- 
other almost  exclusively  American  story 
type,  the  type  that  indicates  rather  than  act- 
ually tells  the  embodied  story.  A  suggestive 
poem-sketch  of  very  different  key  and  tenor 
but  endowed  with  the  same  half-hinted  vitality 
is  Zona  Gale's  "  Mother." 

I  wish  I  had  said  more.    So  long,  so  long 
About  your  simple  tasks  I  watched  you, 

dear; 
I  knew  you  craved  the  word  you  did  not 

hear. 
I  knew  your  spirit,  brave  and  chaste  and 

strong, 
Was  wistful  that  it  might  not  do  the 

wrong; 

And  all  its  wistfulness  and  all  its  fear 
Were    in   your   eyes    whenever    I    was 

near. 
And  yet  you  always  went  your  way  with 

song. 


Narrative  Poetry 


All  prodigal  of  smiles  for  other  eyes 
I  led  my  life.    At  last  there  came  a  day 
When  with  some  careless  word  I  turned 

away 
From  what  you  fashioned  for  a  sweet 

surprise. 

Ah,  now  it  is  too  late  for  me  to  pour 
My  vase  of  myrrh  —  would  God  I  had 

said  more! 

Charles  Hanson  Towne's  delicate  poem- 
sketch  "It  Rained  All  Day"  enshrines  an- 
other mother  in  just  this  same  loving 
penumbra  of  faintly  shadowed  glory  and 
grace. 

It  rained  all  day,  the  day  she  died, 
And  yet  she  thought  it  sweet  and  fair; 
She  said  the  sunshine  kissed  her  hair, 
And  then  she  slept,  all  satisfied. 

It  rained  all  day:    She  woke  again 
And  whispered  that  the  sky  was  blue. 
Ah  me  !     Thank  God  she  never  knew 
How  cold  and  dreary  fell  the  rain. 


156  How  to  Read  Poetry 

So  like  her  life  1     It  rained  all  day, 
And  yet  she  thought  it  all  was  bright; 
She  loved  and  toiled  all  day  and  night — 
She  never  thought  the  skies  were  gray. 

And  in  the  compressed  beauty  of  Jessie  B. 
Rittenhouse's  "  Paradox"  may  not  an  entire 
tragedy  of  the  emotions  be  found? 

I  went  out  to  the  woods  today 

To  hide  away  from  you, 
From  you  a  thousand  miles  away  — 

But  you  came,  too. 

And  yet  the  old  dull  thought  would  stay, 

And  all  my  heart  benumb  — 
If  you  were  but  a  mile  away 

You  would  not  come. 

Certain  of  Edgar  Lee  Masters'  poems, 
notably  many  of  those  in  the  "Anthology," 
are  true  narrative  poems  in  that  through  their 
few  and  seemingly  slight  strokes  the  progress 
of  a  whole  life  may  be  noted.  An  earlier, 
less  sharply  cut  narrative  poem  is  Words- 


Narrative  Poetry  157 

worth's  "Lucy,"  which  gently,  sweetly,  tells 
the  story  of  a  lovely  little  life  from  start  to 
close.  The  three  stanzas  herewith  quoted 
have  been  beloved  by  countless  dissimilar  hu- 
mans; in  all  probability  they  will  be  remem- 
bered and  quoted  long  after  the  writer's 
"Wanderer,"  "Yarrow  Visited,"  "Yarrow 
Revisited,"  and  other  far  more  pretentious 
poems  have  gone  the  way  of  all  flesh  and 
song. 

She  dwelt  among  the  untrodden  ways, 

Beside  the  springs  of  Dove, 
A  maid  whom  there  were  none  to  praise 

And  very  few  to  love : 

A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone 

Half  hidden  from  the  eye ! 
Fair  as  a  star,  wrhen  only  one 

Is  shining  in  the  sky. 

She  lived  unknown,  and  few  could  know 

When  Lucy  ceased  to  be ; 
But  she  is  in  her  grave,  and  oh, 

The  difference  to  me ! 


158  How  to  Read  Poetry 

An  interesting  vista  of  poetic  study  and 
conjecture  is  opened  by  comparison  of 
"  Lucy  "  with  Browning's  "  Evelyn  Hope  "  — 

Beautiful  Evelyn  Hope  is  dead, 
Sit  and  watch  by  her  side  an  hour  — 

another  superlatively  tender,  simple,  and  lov- 
ing life-study  of  a  sweet  young  girl. 

For  Contrasting  example  of  that  which 
might  be  called  the  " grand  manner"  in  re- 
gard to  narrative  poetry  may  be  instanced 
Meredith's  "  Love  in  the  Valley  " — that  long 
and  colorful  poem  so  splendid  in  substance 
and  style. 

Tennyson's  narrative  poems,  uLocksley 
Hall,"  "Godiva,"  "In  the  Children's  Hos- 
pital," "The  North  Countryman,"  "Riz- 
pah,"  etc.,  are  better  known,  perhaps,  than 
almost  any  other  modern  narrative  poems, 
and  they,  too,  occasionally  partake  of  the 
grand  manner.  In  marked  contrast,  and  even 
more  musical,  is  the  simple,  singing  verse, 
rioting  in  rhyme  as  a  flowering  plant  in  bios- 


Narrative  Poetry  159 

soms,  of  Alfred  Noyes.  Noyes  is  at  his  best, 
perhaps,  in  "The  Barrel  Organ"  and  "In 
Old  Japan."  Of  the  former,  in  one  sense 
rather  a  descriptive  than  a  true  narrative 
poem,  in  another  truest  narrative  poem  in 
that  it  tells  the  whole  story  of  a  city,  a  gener- 
ously appetizing  excerpt  shall  be  given  here. 

There's  a  barrel-organ  caroling  across  a 

golden  street, 

In  the  City  as  the  sun  sinks  low; 
And  the  music's  not  immortal;  but  the 

world  has  made  it  sweet 
And  fulfilled  it  with  the  sunset  glow. 
And  it  pulses  through  the  pleasure  of 

the  City  and  the  pain 
That  surrounds  the  singing  organ  like 

a  large  eternal  light; 
And  they've  given  it  a  glory  and  a  part 

to  play  again 

In  the  Symphony  that  rules  the  day 
and  night. 

Yes;  as  the  music  changes, 
Like  a  prismatic  glass, 


160  How  to  Read  Poetry 

It  takes  the  light  and  ranges 

Through  all  the  moods  that  pass ; 

Dissects  the  common  carnival 
Of  passions  and  regrets, 

And  gives  the  world  a  glimpse  of  all 
The  colors  it  forgets. 


Go  down  to  Kew  in  lilac-time,  in  lilac- 
time,  in  lilac-time; 

Go  down  to  Kew  in  lilac-time  (it  isn't  far 
from  London!) 

And  you  shall  wander  hand  in  hand  with 
love  in  summer's  wonderland; 

Go  down  to  Kew  in  lilac-time  (it  isn't  far 
from  London!) 

The  cherry-trees  are  seas  of  bloom  and 

soft  perfume  and  sweet  perfume, 
The  cherry-trees  are  seas  of  bloom  (and 

oh,  so  near  to  London!) 
And  there  they  say,  when  dawn  is  high 

and  all  the  world's  a  blaze  of  sky 
The  cuckoo,  though  he's  very  shy,  will 

sing  a  song  for  London. 


Narrative  Poetry  161 

The  nightingale  is  rather  rare  and  yet 

they  say  you'll  hear  him  there 
At  Kew,  at  Kew  in  lilac-time  (and  oh,  so 

near  to  London!) 
The  linnet  and  the  throstle,  too,   and 

after  dark  the  long  halloo 
And   golden-eyed   tu-whit,    tu-whoo    of 

owls  that  ogle  London. 
•  ••••• 

There's   a   thief,   perhaps,   that  listens 

with  a  face  of  frozen  stone, 
In  the  City  as  the  sun  sinks  low; 
There's  a  portly  man  of  business  with  a 

balance  of  his  own, 
There's  a  clerk  and  there's  a  butcher  of 

a  soft,  reposeful  tone, 
And  they're  all  of  them  returning  to  the 

heavens  they  have  known; 
They    are    crammed    and    jammed    in 

busses  and  —  they're  each  of  them 

alone 
In  the  land  where  the  dead  dreams  go. 

There's  a  very  modish  woman  and  her 
smile  is  very  bland, 


162  How  to  Read  Poetry 

In  the  City  as  the  sun  sinks  low; 

And  her  hansom  jingles  onward,  but  her 
little  jeweled  hand 

Is  clenched  a  little  tighter  and  she  can- 
not understand 

What  she  wants  or  why  she  wanders  to 
that  undiscovered  land, 

For  the  parties  there  are  not  at  all  the 

sort  of  thing  she  planned, 
In.the  land  where  the  dead  dreams  go. 


There's   a  laborer  that   listens  to   the 

voices  of  the  dead 
In  the  City  as  the  sun  sinks  low ; 
And  his  hand  begins  to  tremble  and  his 

face  is  rather  red 
As  he  sees  a  loafer  watching  him  and  — 

there  he  turns  his  head 
And  stares  into  the  sunset  where  his 

April  love  is  fled, 
For  he  hears  her  softly  singing  and  his 

lonely  soul  is  led 
Through  the  lands  where  the  dead 

dreams  go. 


Narrative  Poetry  163 

There's  an  old  and  hardened  demi-rep, 

it's  ringing  in  her  ears, 
In  the  City  as  the  sun  sinks  low ; 
With  the  wild  and  empty  sorrows  of  the 

love  that  blights  and  sears, 
Oh,  and  if  she  hurries  onward,  then  be 

sure,  be  sure  she  hears, 
Hears  and  bears  the  bitter  burden  of  the 

unforgotten  years, 
And  her  laugh's  a  little  harsher  and  her 

eyes  are  brimmed  with  tears 
For  the  land  where  the  dead  dreams 

go- 

There's  a  barrel-organ  caroling  across  a 

golden  street 

In  the  City  as  the  sun  sinks  low; 
Though  the  music's  only  Verdi  there's  a 

world  to  make  it  sweet 
Just  as  yonder  sunset  where  the  earth 

and  heaven  meet 
Mellows  all  the  sooty  City!     Hark,  a 

hundred  thousand  feet 
Are  marching  on  to  glory  through  the 

poppies  and  the  wheat 


164  How  to  Read  Poetry 

In  the  land  where  the  dead  dreams  go. 

Come  down  to  Kew  in  lilac-time,  in  lilac- 
time,  in  lilac-time; 

Come  down  to  Kew  in  lilac-time  (it  isn't 
far  from  London!) 

And  you  shall  wander  hand  in  hand  with 
Love  in  summer's  wonderland, 

Come  down  to  Kew  in  lilac-time  (it  isn't 
v  far  from  London!) 

Another  remarkable  and  sharply  con- 
trasted poem-story  of  the  soul  of  a  city,  like 
that  of  Noyes  in  its  psychologic  insight  and 
interpretation,  wondrously  unlike  in  all  else, 
Ruth  Comfort  Mitchell  names  "The  Night 
Court" 

"  Call  Rose  Costara !" 

Insolent,  she  comes. 
The  watchers,  practiced,  keen,  turn  down 

their  thumbs. 

The  walk,  the  talk,  the  face  —  that  sea- 
shell  tint — 

It  is  old  stuff;  they  read  her  like  coarse 
print. 


Narrative  Poetry  165 

Here  is  no  hapless  innocence  waylaid. 

This  is  a  stolid  worker  at  her  trade. 

Listening,  she  yawns;  half  smiling,  un- 
dismayed, 

Shrugging  a  little  at  the  law's  delay, 

Bored  and  impatient  to  be  on  her  way. 

It  is  her  eighth  conviction.  Out  beyond 
the  rail 

A  lady  novelist  in  search  of  types  turns 
pale. 

She  meant  to  write  of  them  just  as  she 

found  them, 
And  with  no  tears  or  maudlin  glamor 

round  them, 
In   forceful,   virile  words,   harsh,   true 

words,  without  shame, 
Calling  an  ugly  thing,  boldly,  an  ugly 

name; 
Sympathy,  velvet  glove,  on  purpose,  iron 

hand. 
But  eighth  conviction!    All  the  phrases 

she  had  planned 
Fail;  "sullen,"  "vengeful,"  no,  she  isn't 

that. 


i66  How  to  Read  Poetry 

No,  the  pink  face  beneath  the  hectic  hat 
Gives  back  her  own  aghast  and  sickened 

stare 

With  a  detached  and  rather  cheerful  air, 
And  then  the  little  novelist  sees  red. 
From  her  chaste  heart  all  clemency  is 

fled. 
"  Oh,  loathsome !  venomous !     Off  with 

her  head! 
Call  Rose  Costara !  "     But  before  you 

stop, 
And  shelve  your  decent  rage, 

Let's  call  the  cop. 

Let's    call    the    plain-clothes    cop    who 

brought  her  in. 
The  weary-eyed  night  watchman  of  the 

law, 

A  shuffling  person  with  a  hanging  jaw, 
Loose-lipped  and  Sallow,  rather  vague 

of  chin, 
Comes   rubber-heeling   at  his   Honor's 

rap. 
He  set  and  baited  and  then  sprung  the 

trap  — 


Narrative  Poetry  167 

The  trap  —  by  his  unsavory  report. 
Let's  ask  him  why  —  but  first 

Let's  call  the  court. 

Not  only  the  grim  figure  in  the  chair, 
Sphinx-like  above  the  waste  and  wreck- 
age there, 

Skeptical,  weary  of  a  retold  tale, 
But  the  whole  humming  hive,  the  false, 

the  frail  — 

An  old  young  woman  with  a  weasel  face, 
A  lying  witness  waiting  in  his  place, 
Two  ferret  lawyers  nosing  out  a  case, 
Reporters  questioning  a  Mexican, 
Sobbing  her  silly  heart  out  for  her  man, 
Planning  to  feature  her,  "lone,  desper- 
ate, pretty — " 
Yes,  call  the  court.    But  wait ! 

Let's  call  the  city. 

Call  the  community !    Call  up,  call  down, 
Call  all  the  speeding,  mad,  unheeding 

town ! 
Call  rags  and  tags  and  then  call  velvet 

gown! 


i68  How  to  Read  Poetry 

Go,  summon  them  from  tenements  and 
clubs, 

On  office  floors  and  over  steaming  tubs! 

Shout  to  the  boxes  and  behind  the 
scenes, 

Then  to  the  push-carts  and  the  limou- 
sines ! 

Arouse  the  lecture-room,  the  cabaret ! 

Confound  them  with  a  trumpet-blast  and 
say, 

uAre  you  so  dull,  so  deaf  and  blind  in- 
deed, 

That  you  mistake  the  harvest  for  the 
seed?" 

Condemn  them  for  —  but  stay ! 

Let's  call  the  code  — 

The  facile  thing  they've  fashioned  to 
their  mode : 

Smug  sophistries  that  smother  and  be- 
fool, 

That  numb  and  stupefy;  that  clumsy 
thing 

That  measures  mountains  with  a  three- 
foot  rule, 


Narrative  Poetry  169 

And  plumbs  the  ocean  with  a  pudding- 
string — 

The  little,  brittle  code.  Here  is  the 
root, 

Far  out  of  sight,  and  buried  safe  and 
deep, 

And  Rose  Costara  is  the  bitter  fruit. 

On  every  limb  and  leaf,  death,  ruin, 
creep. 

So,  lady  novelist,  go  home  again. 
Rub  biting  acid  on  your  little  pen. 
Look  back  and  out  and  up  and  in,  and 

then 
Write   that  it  is  no  job   for  pruning- 

shears. 
Tell  them  to  dig  for  years  and  years  and 

years 
The  twined  and  twisted  roots.    Blot  out 

the  page; 

Invert  the  blundering  order  of  the  age; 
Reverse  the  scheme  :  the  last  shall  be  the 

first. 
Summon  the  system,  starting  with  the 

worst — 


i  JO  How  to  Read  Poetry 

The  lying,  dying  code !     On,  down  the 

line, 

The  city,  and  the  court,  the  cop.    Assign 
The  guilt,  the  blame,  the  shame  I    Sting, 

lash,  and  spur! 
Call  each  and  all  1     Call  us !    And  then 

call  her! 

Who,  with  a  heart  to  feel,  a  mind  to  think, 
a  soul  v  to  strain  at  its  leashing  conventions, 
could  help  being  moved  by  such  a  poem, 
whether  or  no  previously  arrayed  against 
poetry  in  the  abstract?  Leaving  these,  with 
inevitable  memory  of  Hood's  tragic  "  Bridge 
of  Sighs, "  Florence  Wilkinson's  uThe 
Flower  Makers,"  and  kindred  stirring  themes 
of  the  city;  with  Masefield's  uThe  Daffodil 
Fields"  and  Robert  Frost's  New  England 
story-poems  to  perform  similarly  suggestive 
service  in  behalf  of  the  poetic  realism  of  less 
metropolitan  regions :  let  us  think,  for  a  mo- 
ment, of  those  romantic  poems,  both  of  pre- 
vious and  the  present  era,  that  are  so  closely 
akin  to  poetic  drama. 

The  "  Canterbury  Tales,"  the  Arthurian 


Narrative  Poetry  171 

poem-legends,  the  Icelandic  Sagas,  are  all,  of 
course,  impossible  of  present  reproduction 
as  the  folk-songs  of  our  own  Red  Indians  — 
although  the  reader  sickened  with  war,  bored 
by  business,  and  wearily  longing  for  genuine 
intellectual  refreshment  is  earnestly  recom- 
mended to  them;  but  poem-stories  like  By- 
ron's "  Manfred,"  Hogg's  "Kilmeny"  and 
Scott's  "  Marmion,"  to  say  nothing  of  such 
present-day  kin  as  sundry  Kipling  tale- 
ballads  and  Masefield's  "  Dauber,"  are 
rich  in  the  quickening  qualities  of  stirring 
event  and  rapid  action  that  most  of  us, 
whether  in  prose  or  poetry,  greatly  prize. 
Actual  dramas,  even  though  in  poetic  form 
strictly  belonging  to  poetry's  sister  art  of  the 
theater,  need  not  now  receive  attention,  but 
the  dramatic  poems  instanced,  with  others 
by  John  G.  Neihardt,  Lindsay,  and  countless 
contemporary  and  classic  poets  at  least  will 
bridge  the  friendly  chasm  for  those  who 
would  follow  poetry  across  the  narrow  bor- 
der to  the  poem-drama  realm. 

To  this  realm  the  Browning  classics,  too 
well  known  to  need  even  passing  mention, 


172  How  to  Read  Poetry 

and  such  contemporary  specimens  as  Mase- 
field's  u  Philip  the  King,"  Lily  A.  Long's 
"  Radisson,"  and  Josephine  Preston  Pea- 
body's  incomparable  uThe  Piper,"  with 
poetic-dramatic  fantasies  such  as  Cloyd 
Head's  "Grotesques"  and  the  queer 
u  Mines  "  of  Alfred  Kreymborg,  will  provide 
delightful  introduction.  Again  such  hero- 
tales  as  Masefield's  "  Rosas "  and  Noyes' 
" Drake"  may  well  be  employed  in  the 
friendly  capacity  of  bridge. 

Since  practically  every  poet  of  distinction 
has  done  good  work  in  the  way  of  poetic 
description,  natural,  imaginative  or  psycho- 
logic; since  lines,  stanzas,  poems,  must  spring 
at  will  to  the  memory  of  almost  every  reader ; 
and  since  indication  rather  than  technical 
showing  forth  is  the  present  object,  descrip- 
tive poetry,  as  such  alone,  shall  not  now  be 
directly  analyzed  or  considered.  Plentiful 
example  has  occurred  in  connection  with 
other  poetic  phases.  Apt  and  fascinating 
quotation  might  run  on  forever.  But  few, 
surely,  could  conclude  this  bird's-eye  glimpse 
of  the  picked  poetic  area  without  conscious 


Narrative  Poetry  173 

impulsion  to  make  this  wide  and  fascinating 
area  their  own. 

Let  those  uncertain  as  to  just  what  kind 
of  poetic  fare  will  prove  most  pleasing  begin 
with  the  simpler,  more  dramatic  or  descrip- 
tive narrative  poems  that  have  proved  such 
long  and  sterling  friends  to  other  readers. 
From  such  beginning  has  dawned  and  dated 
many  a  strong  love  of  poetry  in  all  its  many 
forms. 


IN  FLANDERS'  FIELDS 

In  Flanders'  fields  the  poppies  blow 
Between  the  crosses,  row  on  row, 
That  mark  our  place ;  and  in  the  sky 
The  larks,  still  bravely  singing,  fly 
Scarce  heard  amid  the  guns  below. 

We  are  the  Dead.     Short  days  ago 
We  lived,  felt  dawn,  saw  sunset  glow, 
Loved  and  were  loved,  and  now  we  lie 
In  Flanders'  fields. 

Take  up  our  quarrel  with  the  foe : 
To  you  from  falling  hands  we  throw 
The  torch;  be  yours  to  hold  it  high. 
If  ye  break  faith  with  us  who  die 
We  shall  not  sleep,  though  poppies  blow 
In  Flanders'  fields. 

— JOHN  MCCRAE. 


175 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  CASE  FOR  THE  DEFENSE 

HERE,  then,  is  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter: 

Everybody  should  read  poetry. 

Why? 

Because  everybody  loves  it.  (For  particu- 
lars see  Chapter  I.) 

Again,  why? 

Because  everybody  loves,  needs,  desires, 
seeks  enjoyment,  and  the  reading  of  poetry, 
properly  performed  and  pursued,  makes  for 
universal  enjoyment  of  high,  rich,  rare,  inex- 
pensive, highly  diversified,  never-ending  and 
ever-vernal  order.  (For  further  particulars 
see  Chapter  II. 

How,  then,  to  extract  this  enjoyment  from 
poetry,  to  cause  poetry  reading  to  yield  its 
rare  treasures  in  plain  and  painless  manner, 
in  a  word,  "How  to  Read  Poetry?" 

Why,  good  sir  or  madam,  perfectly  simple 
and  easy.  Read  poetry  just  as  you  would 

176 


The  Case  for  the  Defense         177 

bathe  or  dress  or  write  a  letter  or  eat  your 
dinner  or  play  golf  or  take  a  car  down  town. 

Suit  the  action  to  the  time,  the  food  to  the 
appetite,  the  clothing  to  the  weather,  the 
poetry  to  the  mood,  the  nature,  the  taste. 

If  you  like  "old"  poetry,  read  "old" 
poetry  and  don't  be  ashamed  to  admit  that 
you  like  and  read  it. 

If  you  prefer  "new"  poetry,  read  that 
and  don't  be  ashamed  of  reading  it,  either. 

If  you  naturally  enjoy  standard  poetry  of 
grave  or  classic  order,  so  much  the  better; 
you  have  much  to  enjoy  and  may  rejoice  in 
a  life  supply  of  the  preferred  poetic  dainty. 

If  your  taste  runs  to  the  simplest  of  verse, 
to  tender  love  lyrics,  the  least  impressive  of 
"home  and  mother"  jingles,  the  most  primi- 
tive of  war  songs  or  "poems  of  passion," 
why,  have  you  not  still  great  cause  for  rejoic- 
ing? You  are  indubitably  fortunate  in  that 
the  supply  always  will  more  than  equal  the 
demand. 

If  you  like  poetry  of  all  kinds,  read  poetry 
of  all  kinds  and  don't  think  the  case  requires 
apology,  explanation,  nor  any  attention  other 


178  How  to  Read  Poetry 

than  matter-of-fact,  pleased  and  natural  ac- 
ceptance. Why  should  one  deprecate  or  ex- 
plain intellectual,  emotional  likings  any  more 
than  physical  appetites  in  the  way  of  food  or 
drink? 

In  a  word,  once  more,  read  whatever 
poetry  you  like,  and  if  you  don't  think  you 
really  like  any  begin  at  once  to  experiment, 
to  read  all  kinds  until  you  discover  —  as  you 
surely  will  sooner  or  later  and  probably 
sooner — which  kind  you  like  best.  (For 
encouraging  assistance  read  Chapters  ill,  IV, 
v,  and  VI.) 

But  don't,  as  you  would  do  yourself  justice, 
read  Byron  when  your  soul  hungers  for  spir- 
itual sustenance,  nor  Keats  with  the  war-guns 
roaring,  nor  Masters  when  you  long  to 
be  stirred  or  stimulated  or  soothed.  The 
music  of  a  pipe  organ,  remember,  is  admir- 
ably fitted  for  inspiring  or  encouraging  re- 
ligious meditation,  but  it  is  not  well  suited  to 
quickstep  marching  or  the  dancing  of  a  fan- 
dango; a  fife  and  drum  corps,  similarly, 
would  provide  but  a  poor  lullaby  or  waltz 
measure.  There  are  times  when  Noyes' 


The  Case  for  the  Defense         179 

lovely  lilting  cloys  the  stiffened  senses  like 
honey,  when  the  rhythmic  realism  of  Sand- 
burg is  maddening,  the  Tennysonian  senti- 
mentality quite  too  much  to  bear. 

In  a  word,  yet  once  more,  read  poetry  with 
reason,  with  the  invaluable  support  of  this 
chapter,  and,  in  addition,  with  the  aid  of  this 
(softly  whispered)  watchword  and  secret: 

Use  Your  Common  Sense. 


THE  HAPPIEST  HEART 

Who  drives  the  horses  of  the  sun 

Shall  lord  it  but  a  day; 
Better  the  lowly  deed  were  done, 

And  kept  the  humble  way. 

The  rust  will  find  the  sword  of  fame, 
The  dust  will  hide  the  crown ; 

Ay,   none  shall  nail  so  high  his  name 
Time  will  not  tear  it  down. 

The  happiest  heart  that  ever  beat 

Was  in  some  quiet  breast 
That  found  the  common  daylight  sweet, 

And  left  to  Heaven  the  rest. 

— JOHN  VANCE  CHENEY. 


180 


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2-month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling 

(510)642-6753 
1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books 

to  NRLF 
Renewals    and    recharges    may    be    made    4    days 

prior  to  due  date 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


JAN  2    1996 


20.000  (4/94^ 


YB  0209 r 


469906 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


I 


